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A MISSION INVESTIGATION 


ONE OF THE 
PALADIN SERIES 


| Published by the 
Catholic Students’ Mission Crusade | 


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“That America mary know and serve the JNissions” 


THE CATHOLIC STUDENTS’ MISSION CRUSADE 


The Catholic Students’ Mission Crusade is a federation of American Catholic 
students’ societies for the promotion of mission knowledge. The Crusade was 
organized in the year 1918. 

The national headquarters are established at the Crusade Castle, Shattue 
Avenue, Cincinnati, Ohio. 

The governing body in the Crusade is the Executive Board, the members of 
which are elected in the general conventions of the Crusade. 

Active direction of the Crusade is entrusted to the Secretary-Treasurer, whose 
headquarters are at the Crusade Castle and who is assisted by the Director of 
Unit Activities. 

The Executive Board is aided in shaping the policies of the Crusade by the 
Advisory Board, whose members are the directors of various mission training insti- 
tutions, mission aid societies and organizations otherwise interested in missionary 
enterprises. 

The organization of new centers is entrusted to a corps of Field Secretaries, 
who are appointed by the Chairman of the Executive Board. 


THE PALADIN SERIES 


Though the booklets of the Catholic Students’ Mission Crusade’s Paladin 
Series are intended especially to serve as guidebooks for Study Circles of the 
Cursade Units, they offer readable presentations of missionary topics to Catholics 
in general who have even a passing interest in the missions. 

The Paladin Series of mission investization books is published exclusively 
by the Catholic Students’ Mission Crusade, from national headquarters, Crusade 
Castle, Shattue Avenue, Cincinnati, Ohio. 


Copyright, 1925, 
By Catholic Students’ Mission Crusade. 


Price, Fifty Cents 


INDIA -19 25 


A MISSION INVESTIGATION 


WRITTEN BY 


REV. MICHAEL A. MATHIS, C.S.C., 5.T.D. 


HOLY CROSS 
FOREIGN MISSION SEMINARY 
BROOKLAND, D. C. 


CATHOLIC STUDENTS’ MISSION CRUSADE 
PALADIN SERIES 


CRUSADE ROUND TABLES 


A Crusade Study Circle is called a ‘““Round Table.’’ It should have at least six 
members, but must not have more than twelve. When more than twelve Crusaders 
engage in a special investigation of the missions, a new Round Table must be 
established. 

Thad purpose of a Round Table is discussion of some mission problem or® 
mission field with a view to using the information acquired in the discussion to 
the immediate advantage of Catholic missions and the Crusade. Membership in any 
Round Table is purely a matter of choice. One can be a Crusader without being 
a Round Tabler. 

A Round Table is organized by a group of Crusaders electing a ‘‘Chief,”’ 
who will lead the ‘“‘investigations,’. and a ‘‘Seribe,’’ who will act as secretary. 
The Tablers then select a booklet from the Paladin Series and provide themselves 
with individual copies. The Chief appoints a Leader for the first meeting and 
assigns the topies of ‘‘Special Investigation” to each of six Tablers, as explained 
in one of the following paragraphs. A new Leader is appointed for each meeting 
and the Special Investigation topics are assigned so that every Tabler has a turn 
at least at alternate meetings. The name of the Leader and the topics for Special 
Investigation are designated by the Chief at the close of each meeting for the 
meeting next to follow. Each booklet is designed to afford matter for ten meetings, 
which are to be held not oftener than once a week. 

Meetings of the Round Table 

One chapter of the booklet chosen by the Tablers is made the subject of 
each meeting. A thesis or proposition is established in each chapter, which has 
been printed at the end of the chapter whenever feasible. Several references are 
added, under the heading of ‘“‘General Investigation,’’ to enable the Tablers to prove. 
the thesis more definitely than the limited treatment in the chapter would permit. 

The reading of this thesis by the Leader opens the meeting. The Leader then 
proceeds to discuss the chapter, proving the thesis by recounting at least half a 
dozen facts which he has obtained from the booklet itself or from the side reading 
indicated under the heading of ‘“‘General Investigation’’ at the end of the respective 
chapter. 

Not only the Leader, but all the members of the Round Table as well, should 
carefully prepare the chapter for each meeting and should have noted in a private 
copybook at least half a dozen facts which seem the strongest proofs of the thesis 
in question. After the introductory talk by the Leader, a general discussion will 
follow, in which each member will determine the value of the facts he has chosen 
to prove the thesis. Members of the Round Table should preserve the notes which 
they have written in preparing for the discussion. 

Immediately after this general discussion, the “‘Special Investigation”? is led 
by six Tablers appointed previously by the Chief. Each of these Special Investigators 
has been assigned one of the questions listed under the heading, ‘‘Special Investi- 
gation.”’ These questions and the references added to each chapter are intended 
to lead the Tablers to a fuller knowledge of the matter under consideration, which 
can only be treated briefly in the chapter itself. 

The suggestions for “‘Achievement Discussion”? at the end of each chapter are 
especially for the guidance of Round Tablers who wish to win membership in the 
Order of Round Table Paladins. 

The Order of Round Table Paladins 


Membership in the Order of Round Table Paladins is conferred upon any 
Crusader who has attended ten Round Table meetings and accomplished some public 
achievement, with the Crusade or the missions as its object, as a result of the 
attendance at the meetings. ‘ 

The achievement entitling to membership in the Order may be any of the 
following works: the giving of a lecture on the Crusade or the missions; the 
writing of an essay on these subjects which has been put into print; the compo- 
sition of a mission hymn which has been used publicly; the execution of a work of 
art with the missions or the Crusade as its theme. 

Whenever the nature of the activity permits, copies of the achievement must 
be filed with the Crusade when the application is made for membership in the 
Order of Paladins. 

The Order of Paladins has a distinct emblem and members are given special 
certificates of enrollment. Blanks for application for membership are supplied 
to Round Tables by the national Crusade headquarters, Cincinnati, Ohio. All appli- 
cations will be passed upon by the National Executive Board of the Crusade. Simple 
enro!lment in the Order may be had without the payment of a fee. Applicants who 
qualify and wish to have the special emblem and certificate are required to send 
a registration fee of one dollar with their application blanks. 


CHAPTER ONE 
A LAND OF TREMENDOUS CONTRASTS 


The unique thing about India and the lives of her three hundred 
and twenty million people is contrast. This contrast is tremendous— 
contrast within the country itself and contrast with other lands. 


The Country 

India is shut off on the north by a wall of perpetual snow. One 
peak of these Himalayan ranges towers so high above the other 
mountains of the earth that if Mount Blanc were piled upon Pike’s 
Peak the combined elevations would barely reach the dizzy heights 
of Mount Everett. 

In these eternal snows the three great rivers of India, the Indus, 
the Ganges, and the Brahmaputra, are born and rush madly down to 
the sea, carving out in their passage the arid, scorching valley of the 
Punjab on the west and the fertile, steaming plains of Bengal on the 
east. The rest of the peninsula pushes southward into the sea like 
the prow of a mighty ship, one-half the size of the United States, 
forming a plateau which rises abruptly from the Indian Ocean on the 
western coast to an average height of 2,000 feet and then slopes gradu- 
ally eastward to the Bay of Bengal. 

Over and above these striking geographical contrasts, which pre- 
suppose almost every temperature of the earth’s surface, there is such 
a thing as an Indian climate, whose chief characteristic is the three- 
fold season. _from November to March, India is an earthly paradise. 
The temperature seldom rises above 90 degrees and never falls 
below 50. Toward the end of February a western breeze begins to 
blow. With each day it becomes warmer until by April it is like a 
blast from a furnace, scorching vegetation and driving hot sands into 
whirlwinds. By the middle of June, the sand storms give way to the 
monsoon. Then for three months water reigns supreme, all delta 
regions are inundated, vegetation springs forth into riotous life, and 
all India is happy again until, with the receding waters, cholera and 
fever proclaim the advent of winter. 


6 INDIA - 1925 


The People 


America has been called the melting pot of the nations because 
our population absorbs elements from so many divers peoples. India 
is, even more so, a pot, where many more nationalities mingle but 
never mix. There are forty-eight distinct ethnic groups varying from 
naked savages to highly cultured Aryan people, speaking one hun- 
dred and fifty different languages. Hence, it will be readily seen 
that we can not think of India as a homogeneous nation in the sense 
in which that term is used in the western world. 

And yet, in spite of these racial and linguistic contrasts, there are 
some qualities which clearly distinguish the Indian from the inhabi- 
tants of all other lands: a diet of rice and curry; a social convention 
called the caste system; an intense interest in the spiritual, as opposed 
to the material, world; and, in our day, a national aspiration to restore 
India to her ancient religious, economic, and social ideals. 

Religion 

Religion enters into the minutest details of Indian life, to such 
an extent that, without considering its religions, nothing in India can 
be fully understood. 

Perhaps 217,000,000 classify themselves as Hindus, but very few 
believe exactly the same thing. In fact, the whole gamut of belief, 
from the grossest animism to the highest monotheism, is followed 
with perfect equanimity by Hindus. 

There are almost 70,000,000 Mohammedans, whose belief in one 
God is frequently interwoven with many superstitions which are 
purely animistic. Comparatively few Buddhists, nine and one-half 
million, will probably carry out their esthetic worship of flowers and 
preach Nirvana, but in the real trials of life resort to nats (devils 
and goblins). 

' From the worship of sticks and stones to the contemplation and 
mortification of the ascetic, India presents a vast labyrinth of religious 
beliefs and practices. One religious contrast, Hinduism versus Moham- 
medanism, is a latent antagonism which frequently bursts forth into 
violence and bloodshed. And yet, in spite of this complexity and 
diversity, there are some religious ideas and practices which are 
clearly Indian. There is the overmastering power of religion in the 
daily routine of life and the striking religious ideal of the Indian 
people, namely, the ascetic, the saint. 


Occupation 

India is decidedly an agricultural country. Seventy-three out of 
every hundred people—two hundred and twenty-four millions in all— 
are supported by cultivating the soil and by pasturing. Only twenty- 
seven per cent of the people follow other occupations. In this respect, 
the contrast with the western world is striking. In England, for 
example, only eight per cent of the inhabitants earn their livelihood 
by agriculture. 


INDIA - 1925 an 8 


With so vast a population cultivating the soil, the returns are 
too small for a subsistence, such as it is. Hence, almost every 
farmer follows a secondary occupation. 

Formerly each village or two provided itself with artisans and 
menials and protected or enslaved each occupation by caste restric- 
tions. All workmen were allotted their traditional tasks, for which- 
each received a yearly remuneration. More frequently it was a share 
in the crops. Western education, more rapid means of communica- 
‘tion, and machinery are gradually breaking up this old system, except 
in central India and Rajputana. 

The net result of the various occupations in India has produced 
a livelihood (a family of five can subsist on an annual budget of 
$76.00) between the bejeweled upper classes, who live in comparative 
luxury, and one-sixth of the population which retires to rest at night 
not knowing if it will eat at all on the morrow, 

East and West 

Since Alexander’s invasion of the Punjab in 325 B. C., India has 
attracted the Western World. During the intervening centuries, Indian 
cargoes of precious stones, spices and finely woven cloth lured 
the adventurous spirits of the West until in the sixteenth century the 
Portuguese went in search of her by sea. A new route to India led 
to the accidental discovery of America by Columbus. Eventually, 
Portuguese, French, and English merchants, often accompanied by 
missionaries, landed in India. The most successful of these western 
expeditions was the British East India Company. It landed at Surat, 
near Bombay, in 1599. With the crumbling empire of the Moguls, 
government collapsed in India, and the Company was often obliged to 
protect its commerce by military force. From a commercial enter- 
prise the East India Company gradually developed into the dominant 
governing body of the land. 

Soon, however, the exercise of governmental function and com- 
merce led to such grave abuses that an act of Parliament compelled 
the Company to cease its commercial business. This was in 1833. 
The final struggle for sovereignty took place at Plassey in 1857, when 
a young adventurous clerk, Clive by name, defeated the Nawab of 
Bengal. The following year the British Crown took over the reins of 
government. Today the British Raj governs directly two hundred and 
forty-seven million Indians and indirectly, through native rulers, 
seventy-two million inhabitants. 

Along with English commerce and government, a _ distinctly 
western education was introduced, largely through the influence of 
MacCauley, who answered the obvious objection that it would lead to 
the eventual overthrow of British rule by the noble dictum, ‘““When- 
ever it comes, it will be the proudest day in British history.” 

Politics 

Led by a genius, clothed in home-spun and revered as a saint, 

Mahatma Gandhi, India today demands political freedom from the 


‘8 INDIA - 1925 


Government of the land, not with weapons of steel, but with the sword 
of “satyagraha”’ (soul-force). 

The immediate background of this extraordinary political 
adventure is the conflict of East and West in India, British govern- 
ment, western progress, and English education have stirred up a 
national consciousness in this otherwise non-homogeneous land by 
furnishing law and order, a common language for national inter- 
course, and means of communication on a national scale. This 
growing consciousness was suddenly brought to the surface in 1905 
by the victory of Japan over Russia. It demonstrated that the uni- 
versally accepted superiority of the West over the East was at least 
debatable. 


As early as 1909 the Morley-Minto Reforms recognized the new 
spirit by enlarging the share of Indians in their own government. 
This negative power did not satisfy the Indians who expressed them- 
selves through the Indian National Congress, organized in 1885. 


To satisfy the ever increasing demands for political freedom and 
to reward the loyalty of India in the World War, the Government of 
India Act was passed in 1919. It was the generous conception of a 
group of magnanimous English statesmen, such as one meets with in 
every period of Indian-British history, who, in this instance, were 
led by Mr. Montagu, almost as much of an idealist as Gandhi himself. 
The act provided legislative machinery for India to acquire experience 
in self-government with safeguards against misrule on the part of the 
British, and inconsiderate action on the part of the Indians, and 
with provisions for enlarged powers as India should prove herself 
capable of using them. 


The successful working of this act depended largely on mutual 
confidence, which was perilously wounded by the removal of Mr. 
Montagu from office. Distrust was further inflamed by Moham- 
medan dismay over the fate of Turkey in the peace treaty, and the 
brutal killing of almost 400 in a mob that would, not disband at 
Amritzar. At this point the dominating personality of Gandhi united 
India in opposition to the Government of India Act by refusing to 
cooperate in fulfilling the provisions of the act. This led to civil 
disobedience and bloodshed for which Gandhi did voluntary penance. 
In the midst of these turmoils, Gandhi was arrested, convicted of 
fomenting rebellion, and imprisoned for six years. As a consequence, 
non-cooperation wore itself out, and the normal antagonism of Hindus 
versus Mohammedans reasserted itself. Gandhi’s unexpected release 
from prison in 1924 has again turned all eyes on India. 


Round Table Aids for Chapter One 


I. GENERAL INVESTIGATION AIDS 


Chapter Issue or Thesis: India is a land of such tremendous contrasts that it 
challenges world attention. 
Prove this by enumerating six facts. 


INDIA - 1925 9 


II. SPECIAL INVESTIGATION QUESTIONS 


1. What are some of the natural wonders in India’s wonderland? 

Reference: National Geographic Magazine, November, 1921. 

2. Gandhi and Tagore, who are they? 

References: For Gandhi: Van TYNE, India in Ferment, Chap. V. WILSON, 
Gandhi, India’s Prophet (in Review of Reviews, May, 1922). See also other articles 
referred to in The Bengalese, June, 1922. Nation, April 23, 1924. 

For Tagore: TAGORE, My Reminiscences. (This is an autobiography.) 
THOMPSON, Rabindranath Tagore. 

ri What is the immediate background of the Non-cooperation Movement 
in India? 

References: Van TYNE, India in Ferment, especially Chap. I. Living Age, 
March 8, 1924. Gandhi and Non-cooperation (Nation, December 21, 1921). Gandhi’s 
Passive Resistance Triumph (Literary Digest, January 14, 1922). Non-cooperation 
Movement (Nation, December 21, 1921). 

4. Would modern farming methods and organization of new industries raise 
the standard of living in India, and, if so, is that desirable? : 


References: Census of India, Vol. I. Chap. XII. HIGGENBOTTOM, The 
Gospel and the Plow (a Protestant missionary’s views). See also Gandhi’s views in 
Van TYNE, India in-Ferment, pp. 100 ff. 

5. Who are the Holy Men of Indiai? 


References: India and Its Missions, pp. 52-53. National Geographic Magazine, 
December, 1913. Century, November, 1924. The Bengalese, December, 1923, January 
and March, 1924. Van TYNE, India in Ferment, pp. 99 ff. and Chap. IX. 

6. Climbing Mt. Everest, the Top of the World. 

References: BRUICE, The Assault on Mount Everest. Battling with the Last 
Unconquered Height (Travel, Vol. 42, pp. 29-38, March, 1924). Mount Everest Again 
(Science, Vol. 59, pp. 191-2, February 22, 1924). Toward the Top of the World 
(Nation, April 30, 1924). MALLORY, Everest Unvanquished (Asia, Vol. 23, pp. 
636-638, 1923). 


Ill. ACHIEVEMENT DISCUSSION SUGGESTIONS 


1. Make a relief map of India. For practical suggestions, write to Rand- 
McNally Company or to Mr. Raymond Mirch, C.S.C., Holy Cross College 
Brookland, D. C. 


2. As the poltical situation in India is changing almost daily, write a short 
account of events since September, 1924. 


References: ‘Current periodicals, as noted in the Index for Current Periodical 
Literature, which may be found in any library. 


CHAPTER TWO 


UNDER THE TURBAN 


To the trained eye, the Indian turban goes a long way in telling 
the story of the man, his race, his creed, and his country. 


Character of the Indian 
“One cannot live among them without finding them a truly 
lovable people and without imbibing genuine respect and admiration 
for the simple dignity of their lives, the quiet courtesy of their man- 
ners, their uncomplaining endurance of hardships, their unbounded 
hospitality, and the feeling for spiritual values which, in Spite of 
gross superstitions, is unmistakable in the Indian atmosphere”’ (Pratt). 


Dress and Physical Appearance 
The headdress of the Indian varies from ‘the heavy white turban 
of the Punjabis to the wee and gaily embroidered black skull caps of 


10 INDIA - 1925 


the Bengalee Mohammedans. There is great variety in the types of 
dress worn in the various districts of this land. 

In any Indian city one may see well clothed Bengali babus (native 
gentlemen), the upper half of their persons arrayed in coat and vest 
and the lower half swathed in loose flowing garments, move leisurely 
along in the quiet dignity of the Orient. Voluminous pajamas, loose 
jackets, and large white turbans mark the Punjabis. Groups of 
Mohammedans, in long’ black coats, baggy white trousers, and funny 
round black hats of gaily embroidered cloth, chat merrily as they pass. 
Madrasis look like women at a distance because their long hair is tied 
in a knot at the back of their heads. They are picturesquely garbed, 
however, in jackets and skirt-like cloths of bright colors. Tall black 
hats that resemble our silk hats, if one can imagine them cut off at. 
an angle, point out the Parsis. These more picturesque garbs must 
always be thought of, however, in their proper setting, a host of well 
oiled and scantily dressed coolies who mumble a rhyme as they dog- 
trot under huge burdens balanced upon their heads. I shall never 
forget the sight of six.coolies trotting along the crowded streets of 
Calcutta with a piano on their heads. 

The more common garment for Hindu men is the dhoti, a single 
piece of cloth which varies in size from a mere loin cloth to improvized 
trousers. For full dress effect a shawl is thrown over the shoulders. 
It varies in shape from a Roman toga to a mere towel. Moham- 
medans, in place of the dhoti, wear either baggy trousers or a petti- 


coat of colored cloth reaching to the ankles. 

The graceful sari is the ordinary dress for women. It isa long 
piece of cloth wrapped around the body in modest spirals, veiling the 
head. The higher caste Hindu women and many Mohammedan ladies 
veil their faces in public and gape at visitors through the holes of 
a hood. 

From the bluish black of the Dravidians in the south to the 
flushed ivory of the Kashmiri beauties in the north, every shade of 
brown may be seen in Indian faces, whose features, like stature, follow 
racial] lines. Indian teeth contrast sharply with their shaded setting. 
Their pearly whiteness is preserved by a rather crude though effective 
scrubbing with a handful of loam or sand which is applied vigorously 
each morning at the river edge. A sleek black and an occasional dark 
brown is ordinarily the color of Indian hair. It is usually straight, 
often oiled with pungent perfumes, which are sometimes pleasant 
and sometimes otherwise. Indian eyes are lustrous, often large, and 
invariably dark brown. Unusual keenness of vision was proved to 
me on more than one occasion by the uncanny ability of the native 
to see a snake in the darkest path of the jungle. 


Race 


The fact that the Indian population lacks a national] racial type 
is due not so much to the presence of many different races in, India 


INDIA - 1925 BE 


as to the institution of caste, which has artificially stopped that inter- 
mixture of racial blood which elsewhere has produced a national taype. 
Forty-eight distinct racial types can be shown to exist in India, but 
for the scope of this brief survey it will suffice to describe the seven 
principal families of races. 


The Dravidians of the south and some Aborigines in the north 
(e. g., those of Choto Nagpur) are the earliest inhabitants of whom we 
have any knowledge in India. Their low stature, black skin, long 
heads, broad noses, and relatively long arms distinguish them from 
the rest of India’s population. The Mongoloid type today inhabits 
the Himalayas, Nepal, Assam and Burma. The head is broad, com- 
plexion dark, with a yellowish tinge, hair scanty, stature short, nose 
fine to broad, face characteristically flat, and eyelids often oblique. 
The Turko-Iranian type is represented by the Afghans and other 
races in Baluchistan and in the northwest frontier provinces. The 
stature of this type is above the average, complexion fair, head broad, 
and the nose narrow and unusually long. The most numerous type, 
the Indo-Aryan, occupies the Punjab, Rajputana, and Kashmir. [It 
resembies the previous type and differs from it chiefly in the fact 
that in stature its members are taller and the nose, though narrow 
and prominent, is not unusually long. 


The remaining three groups are very ancient mixtures of foreign 
races with the Dravidians. The Aryo-Dravidian or Hindustani type 
is found in the United Provinces and Bihar. The higher representa- 
tives of this type approach the Indo-Aryan, while the lower are not 
very far removed from the Dravidians. The habitat of the Mongoloid- 
Dravidians or Bengali type is Bengal. This type is a blend of the 
Dravidian and Mongoloid elements, with a strain of Indo-Aryan in 
the higher groups. The most prominent examples of the seventh 
group are the Scytho-Dravidians, or the Marathas of western India. 
This type is distinguished by medium stature, long head, and 
short nose. 


With a few marked exceptions, the native of India is of slighter 
build and of weaker frame than the European; his diet is, often from 
choice and often from necessity, wholly or mainly vegetarian; he is 
deficient in energy for sustained hard labor; his earnings are much 
smaller, but his wants are fewer and more easily met; food-grains are 
cheap, houses inexpensive, and clothing is often a matter of decency 
rather than necessity. 

Tribe 

A tribe is a collection or group of families bearing a common 
name; generally claiming common descent from a mythical or histori- 
cal ancestor; in some parts of the country held together rather by the 
obligations of family feuds than by traditions of kinship; usually 
speaking the same language; and occupying, or claiming to occupy, 
a definite tract of country. A tribe is not necessarily endogamous, 


12 INDIA - 1925 


that is, it is not an invariable rule that a man of a particular tribe 
must marry a woman of that tribe. 

The different kinds of tribes are not in complete correspondence 
with, though they bear a relation to, the seven racial groups treated 
above. There is correspondence only where caste is not strong, for 
where caste is especially vigorous, it has succeeded in changing old 
tribes into new castes. 


Caste 
‘“‘A man’s social status varies inversely with the width of his 
nose.” This is the epigrammatic way in which perhaps the most 


prominent authority on the subject, Mr. Risley, states the problem of 
caste in India. It is an institution by which the accident of birth 
detemines irrevocably the course of a man’s social] and domestic life. 
This holds, in its strictest application, to the Hindu population. Yet 
in a limited way, it applies also to the population as a whole. ‘Last 
year I was a Jolaha (weaver); now Iam a Sheikh (judge); next year, 
if prices rise, I shall be a Sayid (lord).’”’ This expresses the less rigid 
character of caste distinction even among the Mohammedan 
population. 

From the four original castes, the Brahman (priests and teach- 
ers), the Kshattriya (warrior), Vaisya (farmer), and Sudra (manual 
laborer), at least 2,400 others have developed in time. Marriage 
between members of different castes is always prohibited. This is 
strong confirmation of the contention that caste in India is essentially 
an attempt to prevent white blood from intermixture with colored. 
Social intercourse is restricted in varying degrees. In Bengal, for 
example, Mr. Risley has grouped the various Hindu castes into seven 
classes. The precedence and relations between these are typical of 
caste life generally. 

The first class is always the Brahmans. In Bengal they number 
a million souls. But even among Brahmans there are subcastes 
between which the social gulf is so great that the Rarhi, who claim 
descent from an ancient Brahman family, will not take water from the 
Barna Brahmans who serve the lowest caste, as priests, teachers and 
cooks, Next in the social scale come the Rajputs (many are land- 
lords), the Baidyas (physicians by profession), and the writer-class 
of Kyasthes, but between them there is a constant struggle for 
precedence. Family trees are assail, and the Kyasthes go so 
for precedence. FEamily trees are assailed, and the Kyasthes go as 
_ far as to accusg the Baidyas of having been low caste till a century 
ago when they bribed the Brahmans to acquiesce in their pretentions 
to move up to the second rung of the social ladder. 

The third class numbers three millions. Confectioners, perfume- 
venders, beetle-growers, oil men, gardeners, potters and barbers figure 
in this group. Brahmans will take water from any caste of this class 
and will serve them. The fourth class included only two castes, from 
whom water is taken by high caste but whose Brahmans are held to 


INDIA - 1925 13 


be degraded. The fifth class is a miscellaneous assortment of castes 
from whom the higher classes do not usually take water. Although the 
village barber will shave them, he will not cut their toe nails, or take 
part in their marriage ceremonies. 


The sixth class includes many castes, numbering eight million 
souls. They abstain from eating beef, pork and fowls, in common 
with all Hindus, but the higher classes will not take water from them. 
The regular barbers refuse to shave them, but most of them can get 
their clothes washed by the village dhodie. Class seven represents 
the lowest grade in the Bengal system. Its members eat all kinds of 
meat. The very shadow of these creatures pollutes. No Brahman, no 
matter how degraded, will serve them, and for them neither barber 
nor washerman will work. This class includes the scavenger and 
leather workers. Then follow the outcasts, several million souls, who 
cannot even enter a Hindu temple, nor drink at public fountains. 


Although each caste has a traditional function, many members 
change their occupation. Birth, not occupation, is the essential 
criterion of caste. Modern movements to break down the barriers of 
caste, especially in behalf of the outcastes, will be ,taken up in 
Chapter Ten. 


Language 

At least one hundred and fifty distinct languages are spoken in 
India. There are more scripts found in India than in all the rest of 
the world combined. Eleven languages are spoken by more than 
ten million people each. Seventy-five million people speak Hindustani, 
though many more understand it. The next largest group whose 
members all speak the same language is Bengali, about forty-eight 
million. In Assam there is a new language for almost every one 
hundred square miles of territory. By a strange anomaly, English is 
the language in which national conventions are commonly held 
in India. 


FPhilologists group these languages into five great families. From 
the point of view both of the number of people speaking a; language 
and of its influence on Indian literature, the most important is the 
Aryan group. Two-thirds of India’s population speak the nineteen 
vernacular languages which have been developed from Sanskrit, the 
form in which the original Aryan dialect became fixed, as the literary 
tongue, about 300 B. C. 


When the Aryan tongue came into contact with the uncivilized 
language of the aborigines, the latter invariably went to the wall. The 
Aryans refused to speak it, and the necessity of intercourse compelled 
the aborigines to use a broken “pigeon” form of a language of a 
superior civilization. As generations passed, the mixed jargon 
approximated the original, and the aboriginal died a natural death. 
Every stage of this transformation can still be seen on the ethnic 
borderlands of India. 


14 INDIA - 1925 


The second family is the Dravidian. It is principally in the south, 
where the Aryans did not come into contact with the aborigines, that 
this family of aboriginal languages has survived. It comprises four- 
teen vernaculars, spoken by about. sixty-seven million people. 

The third group is called the Munda family. Six languages, 
spoken by three and one-half million aborigines, make up this family. 
Choto Nagpur is its principal habitat. None of the Munda languages 
has as yet either a distinct script or literature. 

Both the Mon-Khmer and the Tibeto-Chinese families are usually © 
grouped under the common name Indo-Chinese, This group includes 
more than one hundred languages spoken by about forty million 
people, descendants of Mongolian immigrants who came from north- 
western China down the Irriwaddy into Burma, and down the Brah- 
maputra into Assam, and up the same river into Tibet. 


Round Table Aids for Chapter Two 


I. GENERAL INVESTIGATION AIDS 


Chapter Issue or Thesis: The physical appearance of the Indian and his 
social organization present a uniqueness and complexity not found, in the same 
extremes, elsewhere in the human family. 

Prove this by enumerating six facts. 


II. SPECIAL INVESTIGATION QUESTIONS 


1. Is there a silver lining to India’s cloudy sobriety ? 

References: EHA, Behind the Bungalow. Bandurah Tin Horn, published 
monthly by the Rev. John B. Delaunay, C.S.C., Ph.D. Copies may be had by applying 
to The Bengalese. See same writer’s articles in back volumes of The Bengalese. 
The Worship of Hari’s Feet (Asia, April, 1923). 

2. Are the sari and Indian jewelry and cosmetics as beautiful a dress and 
ornament for women as western aids to beauty? 

References: India and Its Missions, pp. 40-48. MATHIS, With the Holy Cross 
in Bengal. See Chap. I. on Daceca’s beautiful fabrics and jewelery and Chap. II. 
for native dress. The Indian Year Book (under title ‘‘“Manners and Customs’’). 

3. How does the boy live in India’s most cultured household? 

References: TAGORE, My Reminiscences. 

4. Is there any similarity between the castes of India and the classes of 
society in the ancient Roman civilization or in the so-called distinctions between 
the white and colored populations of our own America? 

References: DILL, Roman Society in the last days of the Western Empire, 
especially Book III. Chap. I. on the Theodotian Code. India and Its Missions 
(Index on “Caste’’). India in Ferment, p. 187. 

5. What do you think of Ghandi’s argument in favor of India’s adherence to 
her social structure on the ground that it-has existed for 24 centuries and witnessed 
the decay of Grecian and Roman civilization? 

References: India in Ferment, especially Chap. V. 

6. What do India’s leaders think of caste? 

References: The Bengalese, July, 1924. fake in Ferment, pp. 227-229. 
EMERSON, This is India (Asia, March, 1928). 


III. ACHIEVEMENT DISCUSSION SUGGESTIONS 


_ 1. Make plaster of paris models of representatives of each of the seven 
principal families of races in India. 


2. Make or paint costume, including headdress and jewelry, most commonly 
used by men and that employed by women in India. 

3. Write an essay on the possibilities of a democratic form of government, 
like that of the United States, in India. 

References: MONTAGUE, Self-Government for India (Asia, March, 1923). 
Democracy in India’s Politics (The Outlook, February, 13, 1924). DAS, Compro- 
mise or Republicanism in India? (Nation, March 5, 1924). India in Ferment. 


INDIA - 1925 te 


CHAPTER THREE 
WHERE RELIGION RULES 


India’s greatness is not in stone, or marble, or any externa] thing. 
It is internal—the flight of its poets, the teaching of its sages, and 
the mortifications of its ascetics. The ascetic is India’s religious 
ideal and him: alone will she follow. This is, in substance, Tagore’s 
description of India’s religious character, during a conference which 
the famous Bengali poet and sage gave me in his Calcutta home. 


Brahmanism 

Brahmanism is the controlling force in the labyrinth of India’s 
non-Christian religious wandering. Its genius is to hold only a mo- 
dicum of essential religious notions, with a strange power of grad- 
ually, almost imperceptibly, absorbing all rival tendencies. The 
absorption is, however, always at the price of compromise, the mo- 
dicum of fundamental notions being constantly colored by tthe re- 
ligions absorbed. Hence, modern Hinduism, which is the latest phase 
in the evolution of three thousand years of Brahmanism, ranges from 
gross animism to the highest monotheism. 

Brahmanism, in all its varying stages and aspects, has been set 
down in innumerable writings (principally in the Sanskrit language) 
which in time have become canonized as sacred books. The Vedic 
Hymns, the Brahamanasg and the Upanishads might be called the 
three testaments of Brahmanism. The Vedic is the most ancient, 
and its religious notions resemble those of the Iliad and Odyssey. 
The Brahmanas are the priestly writings in which the ritual and 
importance of sacrifice are noted. These two so-called testaments 
preceded Buddhism. The Upanishads are mystical, philosophical and 
‘theological writings of succeeding periods. Perhaps the modicum 
of religious notions commonly accepted in Brahmanism is twofold, 
that true knowledge leads to supreme bliss by absorption into God 
and that an endless cycle of existence (transmigration) is given to 
man to reach this blessedness. With the introduction of transmigra- 
tion into Brahmanic religion, the chief emphasis of practical religion 
was placed on the means of escaping rebirth into lower forms of life. 
The exclusiveness of the Brahman caste in reserving to itself the 
ascetic life as a means of eScaping rebirth and thus reaching supreme 
bliss and itS arrogance in pretending to secure divine favors through 
bloody sacrifices, when offered by themselves alone, caused a re- 
ligious revolt which gradually led to Buddhism and Jainism without, 
however, destroying Brahmanism. 


16 INDIA - 1925 


Buddhism 

Historically, both Buddhism and Jainism represent an assault 
against Brahmanic Supremacy. And since this supremacy hinged on 
sacrifice, caste and ascetic life, Buddhists and Jains opposed all kill- 
ing of animals by the doctrine of ‘‘ahinsa’’ (a sacred regard for ani- 
mal life), disregarded caste restrictions and threw open the door of 
ascetic life to all, extending its privileges even to the lay people by 
enrolling them into a kind of third order. The doctrine of ahinsa 
has left a permanent mark on the character of the Orient, the spirit 
of “live and let live,’’ even where Buddhism has long since passed 
away. 


Buddhism became a State religion under Asoka about 250 B.C., 
and it was brought to the whole Orient by missionaries at that time. 
By a strange paradox, Buddhism is practically extinct in the land of 
its birth, while it flourishes throughout the rest of the Orient. The 
eleven million Buddhists of the Indian Empire live in Burma, Ceylon 
and Tibet. 


In spite of the fact that Buddha’s religion is one of pessimism, 
without mentioning God, and offering its adherents only the hope of 
one day being released from pain, notwithstanding the fact that Bud- 
dhism is only an esthetic veneer which goes well in times of pros- 
perity but which is abandoned for pagan- gods and demons in the 
vital concerns of life, the hold of Buddha on the heart-strings of 
Asia’s millions can be explained only by the remarkably lovable per- 
sonality of Buddha himself, and, in a secondary way, by the brother- 
hood of yellow-robed monks who keep ever fresh the ascetic ideal of 
the founder. 


Nursed in the lap of oriental luxury, Buddha left all to seek true 
happiness with the ascetics of his day. Like them he tried, by mor- 
tifications and meditation, to avoid reincarnation. Suddenly, Buddha 
became enlightened. Then he announced the fourfold truth: “Life 
is the vanity of vanities; birth and rebirth are the result of passion 
and desire; that to escape these evils, desire must be destroyed by 
what is called the eightfold pact—right belief, right resolve, right 
words, right acts, right life, right effort, right thinking, right medita- 
tion.’”’ This gospel Buddha preached, accompanied by extraordinary 
gentleness, in the neighborhood of Benares for many years. The 
date of his death is fixed by the latest critics at about 508 B.C. 


Jainism 


Like Buddhism, Jainism was a revolt against Brahmanic suprem- 
acy. For both, Nirvana (blessedness) is the goal, but it has a dif- 
ferent connotation for each. With the Buddhists it implies extinction, 
with the Jains, an escape from the body, not from existence. They 
have practically the same moral laws with the difference that em- 
phasis is placed on different practices. With the Jains, asceticism is 
emphasized to such an extent that today it survives in a repulsive 
form. The Jain monk will never leave hig cell except to take food, 


INDIA - 1925 Li 


while the afternoon walk is a part of the Buddhist monks’ daily 
regime. Buddhist monks carry a ‘‘chastity fan’’ to guard their eyes 
from passing women, while one branch of the Jain monks go about 
naked. The Jain is also more careful of animal life than his Bud- 
dhist brother. The Jain carries a fan of goat’s hair to remove all 
vermin from the road, lest inadvertently life be taken. For the same 
reason the clothes of the Jain sect which permits such luxury are cov- 
ered with vermin. The yellow-robed Buddhist monk is dapper in com- 
parison. Jainism also differs from its confederate in that it has 
not absolutely broken with Brahmanism in philosophy and feeling. 
The result is that the Jains continue to exist in the land of their birth 
and today count one and one-half million souls. Practically all Jains 
are merchants for the reason that it is the only occupation in which 
there is no danger of taking animal life. The chief cities and marts 
of western India are their strongholds. 


Modern Hinduism 

While the non-Brahmanic revolutions were under way, Brahman- 
ism was not asleep. Its old genius for absorbing rival religious ten- 
dencies was at work. Gradually the Buddhists were eliminated and 
the Jalins lived on such friendly terms with the Hindus that now 
Jains look upon themselves as a Hindu sect. Brahmanism, at the same 
time, has been colored by the absorption of these non-Brahmanic 
faiths. Likewise, with the extension of the Aryan supremacy over 
the aboriginal races, the absorption of the animistic element has gone 
on to such an extent that the primitive Brahmanic belief has been 
profoundly altered. The result is that modern Hinduism, which 
dates back at least to the fifth century of our era, is such a jumble 
of religious notions that recently the leading Hindu authorities gave 
twenty-one conflicting definitions of the essential tenets of their re- 
ligion. Modern Hinduism includes almost every religious notion from 
animism to monotheism. 

Abstracting from the various stories and attributes of the thou- 
sand and one gods in the Hindu pantheon, Hindus today may be 
classified as worshippers of Siva or worshippers of Vishnu. The 
former may be looked upon as the conservative and simple element 
of the population. Siva is conceived of as having charge of the whole 
course of animated nature, the incessant round of birth and death. 
His attributes are indicated by the symbols of natural reproduction 
which are painted in red across the forehead of his devotee and are 
objects of worship at the principal shrine. Siva needs not the gor- 
geous ceremonial of Vishnu. A few flowers and water will suffice. 
Vishnu, on the contrary, has a luxurious ceremonial and lax stand- 
ard of morals which appeal to the moneyed middle class. The chief 
characteristic of Vishnu sectarianism is that Vishnu himself is not 
often worshipped, but one of his many incarnations. Krisna and 
Rama are the most popular. 

A third form of sectarianism is found chiefly in Bengal, goddess- 
worship. Kali is the most popular goddess. Outside of the educated 


18 INDIA - 1925 


classes and a few leaders, this sectarianism means little to the mass 
of the people, who are ignorant of the sect to which they belong. 
The “rank and file’ will worship any g0d whom one deems powerful 
for good or evil, visit any shrine hallowed by sanctity and follow the 
advice of his guru (religious teacher), who is usually a member of 
the ascetic orders, 

Reforms of Hinduism have been attempted down to our own time. 
The monotheism initiated by Ram Mohan Roy and the grandfather 
of Tagore is called the Brahma Samaj. i 

No description of Hinduism is adequate without a note on the 
ascetic. The ascetic renounces the world and, more usually, takes 
his begging bowl and sets out for the northern hills to join the five 
million holy men and for ten years to live in apprenticeship. Con- 
templation and mortification are the ascetic’s means of obtaining 
the coveted escape from reincarnation and eventual union with the 
divinity. 

Animism 


This is the religion of the aborigines, and, although many of 
them have become Hindus, Buddhists and Mohammedans, their an- 
cient belief has not only colored Hinduism but still exercises a tre- 
mendous influence in all non-Christian religions in the real trials of 
life. The tenets and practices of the Hindus, Buddhists and Moham- 
medans seem to satisfy the converted aboriginal so long as all goes 
well, but in difficulties recourse is invariably had to the nats (demons 
and goblins). The leading features of animism, according to Mr. 
Risley, the most eminent authority on the subject, are the following: 
“It conceives of man as passing through life surrounded by a ghostly 
company of powers, elements, tendencies, mostly impersonal in their 
character, shapeless phantasms of which no image can be made and 
no definite idea can be formed. Some of these have spheres of in- 
fluence of their own: one presides over cholera, another over small- 
pox, and another over cattle diseases; Some dwell in rocks, others 
haunt trees, others again are associated with rivers, whirlpools, 
waterfalls, strangely hidden in the depths of the hills. All of them 
require to be diligently propitiated by the reason of the ills which 
proceed from them, and usually the land of the village provides 
the means for their propitiation.”’ 


Mohammedanism 

During our Middle Ages, Mohammedans entered northern India, 
established first the Afghan and then the Mogul empire, and con- 
verted many of their seventy million adherents of today to the teach- 
ings of the Prophet. One-third of India’s Moslems are Bengali. 
With the collapse of Mogul rule and with the rise of the British’ 
Raj, the Mohammedans quickly degenerated. Today they are more 
illiterate than the Hindus. The recent nationalist movement and the 
defeat of Turkey in the World War, however, have aroused in them 
a sense of religious consciousness. 


INDIA - 19255 19 


ne pc a a a cr Ad a ro A eS a wv RA IE De OP DL eR oe 


The belief and practices of the Moslems are based upon their 
characteristic profession of faith, ‘there is no other God but the true 
God and Mohammed is His Prophet.” This is the first of the five 
fundamentals of Mohammedanism. The others are fasting, prayer, 
alms-giving and the pilgrimage to Mecca. Prayer is prescribed five 
times a day, at dawn, midday, after noon, sunset and before mid- 
night. The most notable fast occurs during the month of April. 
This Mohammedan ‘‘Lent” is called Rumazan. The greatest bless- 
ings are promised those who keep this feast. Each day of Rumazan, 
from sunrise to sunset, all eating, drinking, embracing, chewing of 
betel-nut, smoking, are interdicted. Moslems are obliged to give alms 
of five things, money, cattle, grain, fruit and merchandise, if any of 
these things have been in their possession for a whole year. The 
blessings held in store for those who make the pilgrimage to Mecca 
are so great that, for the devout Moslem, the idea of one day making 
this journey is never really out of mind. 


Round Table Aids for Chapter Three 
I. GENERAL INVESTIGATION AIDS 


Chapter Issue or Thesis: The ascetic is India’s religious ideal. 
Prove this by enumerating six facts. 


II. SPECIAL INVESTIGATION QUESTIONS 


1. How does religion enter and influence the life of India? 

References: RANKER, The Material Side of Religion (The Edinburgh Re- 
view, July, 1924). India a Land of Religious Ideals (The Bengalese, September, 
1923; also, The Bengalese, July, 1923). 

2. What place do pilgrimages hold’ in the religious life of India? 

References: Hindu, Mohammedan and Catholic pilgrimages (The Bengalese, 
March, December, 1923, and January, 1924). The Port of Paradise (Asia, Janu- 
ary, 1924, 

8. What is, first, the Jugarnath Car Festival; second, the religious mela? 

Sf tole LOTI, India, pp. 228-233. The Bengalese, December, 1923, 
pp. ‘ 

4. What are the striking religious features of Benares, India’s most charac- 
teristic Hindu city? 

References: The Holy One of Benares (Atlantic Monthly, August, 1924). 

5. How does Buddha affect oriental peoples? 

References: ANDREWS, Where Race Line Ends (in Living Age, August 30, 
1924). The Bengalese, March, 1924. 

6. What are the kinds, character and importance of asceticism in India? 

References: The Holy Men of India (Century, November, 1924). See also 
all references to Question 5 of Special Investigation at end of Chapter One. 


Ill ACHIEVEMENT DISCUSSION SUGGESTIONS 


1. Make plaster of paris model of Jugarnath Car Festival. 

For information confer with the Committee of the Vatican Missionary Exposi- 
tion, Rome, for picture of this model shown at the exposition. ‘See, also, The Ben- 
galese, April, 1925. 

2. Write a short colorful description of Benares, Delhi, Amritzar and Kandy, 
the religious centers of the Hindu, the Mohammedan, the Jain and the Buddhist, 
respectively. 


20 INDIA - 1925 


CHAPTER FOUR 
CROSS-BEARERS THROUGHOUT THE CENTURY 


\ 


Unlike Catholic missions in most pagan lands, the history of the 
apostolate in India not only antedates missionary effort in most of 
Christian Europe but also holds a special place in every succeeding 
period of missionary achievement. 


Saint Thomas Christians 

The Catholic world was profoundly stirred, in the last century, 
when the first missionary to follow Commodore Perry’s warships 
into Japan discovered there a community of native Catholics, 
descendants of the Japanese converts made by Saint Francis Xavier 
in the sixteenth century. A price upon their heads, without priests 
or bishops, cut off from contact with the rest of the Catholic world, 
these heroic Catholics, held to their faith during three centuries of 
bitterest persecution. 

Something of the same sensation must have been felt by Catholic 
Europe when, in 1498, the Portuguese set foot in India and found 
along the western coast some 200,000 Christians, with bishops and 
clergy, churches and chapels, and a well organized Catholic life. 

While critics dispute whether Saint Thomas was in India, the 
tradition of the Syriac Christians is unmistakable. At Cranganore on 
the western coast the Apostle found a colony of Jews. Upon their 
conversion, they turned their synagogues into churches. The tradition 
goes on to relate how Saint Thomas converted many Brahmans as 
well as lower caste Hindus, erecting some seven churches, and 
ordaining priests and bishops for them. Making his way eastward 
over the Ghats, the Apostle preached at several places in southern 
India. He was finally martyred at Mylapore on the eastern coast. 
His tomb was the most sacred shrine in India until the advent of 
Saint Francis Xavier fifteen centuries later. Pilgrimages were con- 
tinously made to it from Malabar throughout India’s Middle Ages. 

In 3825, at the Council of Nice, a bishop registered as “John 
of all Persia and India.’’ During the intervening centuries only inter- 
mittent communications were maintained between the Syrian Chris- 
tians of Malabar and those of the Near East. It seems quite certain 
that their bishops came from the great eastern patriarchates, particu- 
larly Babylon. 

In 496 the patriarch of Babylon, fell into the Nestorian heresy, 
and gradually the bishops sent from this see tried to introduce the 
heresy. These efforts, however, did not affect the rank and file of the 


INDIA - 1925 | 21 


people. Greater trials came with Vasco da Gama’s discovery of a new 
route to India in 1498. Goa became the new seat of ecclesiastical 
power in the Orient, and eventually the Syriac Christians were placed 
under Portuguese jurisdiction. Bishops from a schismatic see 
naturally caused misgivings at Goa, and Latin bishops were appointed 
instead. This was resented by the Syriac Christians, and they sought 
bishops elsewhere. A schismatic bishop, thus selected, was arrested 
by the Portuguese on his arrival in India. This action aroused such 
a pitch of feeling that.the Syrian Christians revolted. Pope Alexander 
VII sent the Carmelites to bring back the Syrians to the fold, and so 
successful have they been that today the Syriac Catholics number 
about four hundred thousand. In 1898 Pope Leo XIII gave them 
bishops of their own nationality and rite, and only this year the reign- 
ing pontiff created a Syriac hierarchy, the vicar apostolic of Ernaku- 
lam becoming the first archbishop with four suffragan sees. 


The Missionaries of Portugal 

Portugal has the distinction of being the first European nation 
to inaugurate Christian missionary work iin India, and for a time 
it seemed that it would be the only Christian power at work in 
Hindustan. Pope Leo X gave to the Portuguese exclusive privileges 
of jurisdiction over the land discovered or to be discovered from Cape 
Bojador in Africa to farthest India; this was the famous Piadroado, or 
right of patronage, which in succeeding centuries was almost to split 
the Indian Church. With great energy the Portuguese sought to 
extend their empire in the East and to convert its pagan millions. 
The names of Saint Francis Xavier, Robert de Nobili, Blessed John de 
Britto, Costanzo Beschi, and Antonio Andrada form an immortal 
galaxy. Though they were not all Portuguese by birth, it was Portugal 
that assigned them to their field and supported them in their heroic 
labors. Down the west coast of India and northward along the east 
coast of Bengal, and even into Tibet, the Portuguese planted commer- 
cial colonies and missions, and these became the foundation of the 
Church in India as we have it today. The directory of priests at work 
in India in our time shows page after page of Portuguese names: 
Albuquerque, Almeida, Carvalho, Coelho, Costa, Cruz, Dias, Fernandes, 
Garcias, Menezes, Pinto, Rocha, Silva, and Vaz. No fewer than a 
hundred and six of the names in the, 1922 directory are Sousa or its 
variant, Souza. This does not mean that all these bearers of 
Portuguese names are Portuguese. The majority are rather the 
descendants of converts made by the Portuguese missionaries centuries 
ago, who took the name of a beloved priest upon receiving baptism 
and handed the name down as a precious heritage. Almost any 
gathering of Catholics in India will show representatives of this 
inheritance, for the short-lived Portuguese empire in India made an 
indelible impression upon the land, and especially upon the Catholic 
community. The story of how this impression was made is one of 
the romances of history. 


22 INDIA - 1925 


- Today, by virtue of the last concordat between the Holy See and 
Portugal (1886), all that remains of India missions under distinctive 
Portuguese jurisdiction is one ecclesiastical province, the archdiocese 
of Goa, with Demaun, Cochin, and Mylapore as suffragan sees. To 
Mylapore are attached about fifteen or twenty missions in Bengal and 
southern India. The population under the Padroado jurisdiction is 
one-fifth of the total Catholic population of the land. It includes 
Goa (325,000), Demaun (87,842), Cochin (108,711), and Mylapore 
(82.899). 


Saint Francis Xavier and the Era of Discovery 

The name of Saint Francis Xavier outshines every other in the 
story of the marvelous diffusion of the Faith during the ages of dis- 
covery. He is the ideal missionary. Probably no other man, with the 
exception of Saint Paul, has done so much to make the Catholic Faith 
known to pagans. Saint Francis landed at Goa in 1542, having been 
sent thither by Saint Ignatius at the request of King John III of 
Portugal. He came in the double capacity of papal legate and royal 
commissioner, though he made little use of his high powers. 

Xavier’s first work was the conversion of the demoralized Portu- 
guese at Goa. He began by catechizing the children whom he 
assembled by the ringing ofa bell. So effective was the Saint’s apos- 
tolate that occasionally one of these little converts protested against 
the crimes he witnessed in such a way as to abash the most hardened 
ruffians. To catch the attention of his little hearers he set the 
catechism to musical airs. This novel system has spread to all India, 
and well do I recall the “Ten Commandments” as rendered by the 
Bengalee children. The gusto of the singers showed plainly that their 
hymn was meant to pierce heaven. 

Some idea of the ingenuity of Xavier’s method may be gathered 
from the following practice. He used to go among the Portuzuese 
colonists, sometimes even inviting himself to dine with them. He 
would profit by these visits to ask for the children, whom he caressed, 
while treating their mother—often a poor slave—as though she were a 
respectable lady, speaking kindly to her and even praising her beauty 
to please his host. When left alone with him, however, the Saint 
would say, “You have a fair slave who deserves to be your wife.’’ Or, 
if she were ill-favored, whom the Saint knew the man would never 
marry, Francis used to exclaim, ‘“‘Good God, what a monster! How 
can you endure the sight of her in your house?’’ In this way he 
brought about a Christian union between persons living in sin and, 
where marriage was impossible, illicit union was dissolved. 

For three years Saint Francis labored in southern India, first, 
among a low caste of pearl-fishers at the extremity of the peninsula, 
and later among the inhabitants of the Malabar coast. The converted 
fishermen have remained staunch in the Faith and their descendants 
today glory in the title “Saint Francis Xavier Christians.’”’ The Saint 
then crossed the peninsula on foot to visit the tomb of Saint Thomas 


INDIA - 1925 23 


the Apostle at Mylapore. There he sought heavenly light for a pro- 
posed mission to the Malay Straits. Shortly after, Xavier embarked 
on a sailing vessel from Mylapore. His work in the Straits lasted 
three years. 

On his way back to Goa the Saint stopped off to visit his converts 
of the fishery coast, who were delighted at seeing their ‘Great 
Father’? once more. He gave a retreat to the missionaries stationed 
there, urging them especially to study diligently the native dialect 
and to translate his “Christian Doctrine.” A flying visit to Ceylon 
resulted in the conversion of a native prince. A year went by at Goa 
while he made arrangements for a mission to Japan, meanwhile 
instructing the recruits and untangling the affairs of the Jesuit 
Fathers. From his arduous but fruitful mission to Japan the Saint 
returned to Goa in 1552 for the last time. He was now planning a 
mission to China. Maundy Thursday of the same year, having given 
his last instructions and advice to the brethren at the College of 
St. Paul, and having taken part in the beautiful rites and procession 
of the day, Saint Francis set sail from Goa, never to return. Death 
came to him on the lonely island of Sancian off the Chinese coast, 
November 2, 1552. 


The Successors of Saint Francis 


In 1570 Akbar, the Great Mogul, dispatched a: letter to the 
authorities at Goa, asking for theologians to instruct him in the 
Christian religion. You can imagine the joy this message must have 
brought to the missionaries. Two learned Jesuits, Aquaviva and 
Monserrate, were deputed for the mission to the court of the Moslem 
empire of northern India. They were well received, educated one of 
Akbar’s sons, but the Mogul’s interest in the Christian religion was 
found to be more eclectic than practical. The net result of the mission 
was the favorable attitude of the imperial court to the Catholic Faith 
and the founding of a mission in Agra which has survived to our 
own day. 

Less spectacular but vastly more important was the work done 
by the Italian Jesuit Robert de Nobili in the Madura district of 
southern India. He arrived in Goa in 1605, and shortly after was sent 
to Madura to study Tamil. Within a year he was able to write the 
new language with ease. Meanwhile he was studying mission methods. 
He had observed that his superior, Father Fernandez, during his 
fourteen years in India had not made a single convert among the 
Hindus. De Nobili’s conclusion was that the Hindus were repelled 
from the Catholic religion not on religious but rather on social 
grounds. To their minds, Father Fernandez was a Philistine ag bar- 
barous as the rest of the Portuguese, eating beef, drinking wine, and 
consorting with the outcastes. 

De Nobili determined to try out the maxim of Saint Paul about 
being all things to all men. MRe-entering the country in the dress of a 
Hindu ascetic, he introduced himself as a Roman rajah (afterwards as 


24 INDIA - 1925 

pees he oh ol NANT, bpp. Sh Uigpeey ah [Vt Yes PAIRS ARMA Re NENG SR Need 7 ta 
a Brahman) desirous of living in Madura to do penance and to study 
the sacred law. He isolated himself from Father Fernandez, lived on 
a frugal meal of rice, milk, and herbs, and followed other caste 
restrictions. The Brahmans were soon very curious, but he was slow 
to admit visitors, and his audiences were conducted according to the 
strictest Hindu etiquette. His mastery of Tamil and familiarity with 
Sanskrit poetry and philosophy charmed his guests. Gradually he 
won disciples, whom he baptized and allowed to keep the insignia and 
customs of their ranks as being purely social observances, An average 
of five thousand conversions was made each year and by, 1700 there 
was a Christian community of 150,000 in Madura and the adjoining 
districts. 

A successor'of de Nobili in the Madura mission, a Portuguese 
Jesuit, was to be raised to the altar of the Church as the Blessed John 
de Britto, martyr. Arriving in India in 16738, he crossed the Ghats on 
foot to reach Madura. He put on the yellow cotton robe of a noble 
caste, observing its food restrictions and etiquette. Through Madura 
and Tanjore he tramped On his missionary tours, instructing and 
baptizing those of good-will, gently arguing with the perverse, suf- 
fering fatigues, sickness, persecution, and finally martyrdom itself. 
He had converted a prince in the Marava district, who consented to 
set aside all his wives save the first. One of these, imitating the 
Herodias of the Gospel, succeeded in her venegeful aim of obtaining 
the missionary’s head, which was struck off February 11, 1693. 

The name of Costanzo Beschi, who labored in Madura during the 
following century, is remembered for his extraordinary facility in 
writing the native Tamil. From 1710, when he entered Madura, until 
his death in 1746, he astonished both Europeans and Indians by his 
profound scholarship and truly poetic genius. The “Tembavani,” his 
greatest work, is described by a modern German critic as “the noblest 
epic poem in honor of Saint Joseph in any literature, East or West.” 
It is a Tamil ‘‘Divina Comedia.’ In another long poem, ‘‘The Adven- 
tures of the Guru Kadey,”’ he satirizes with delightful wit and humor 
the foibles of the Hindu pretenders to wisdom. 

Missionaries of Propaganda 

Up to 1637, all missionary work in India was conducted under 
the patronage of Portugal. This was by virtue of the so-called 
“Padroado,” the right of patronage, arranged by a concordat between 
the Holy See and the Portuguese government. By it the Holy See 
conceded the right to nominate bishops for eastern sees to Portugal, 
which in turn, agreed to secure missionaries and support them in the 
field. The magnitude of Portuguese achievement is not underesti- — 
mated when I say that the hugeness of the task of converting India was 
too great for any one European power whose sun of oriental empire 
had already set. This was shown in a most essential element of 
apostolic enterprise, namely, the supply of missionaries, which by 1700 
had practically come to a standstill.’ It was clear that this method 


INDIA - 1925 25: 


of conducting Catholic missions in the Orient would have to be sup- 
plemented. The newly organized Sacred Congregation of Propaganda 
Fide (1622) and European mission schools became the chosen means. 


The first Propaganda vicar apostolic was a Brahman convert 
from Goa, Matheus de Castro. He was educated at the Propaganda 
College in Rome and joined Saint Philip Neri’s new community, the 
Oratorians. He was consecrated bishop in 1637, and the territories 
of the Great Mogul were committed to his charge. A kinsman of his 
succeeded him as vicar, and in 1695 Italian Carmelites were placed 
in charge. The name of the Great Mogul was dropped when the 
British took over Bombay. It became known as the Bombay mission. 
At the request of the Carmelites, the Jesuits took over the mission 
in 1850. 

The second vicariate was that of Malabar. To win back the 
Syriac Christians who, as has been noted, refused to accept 
bishops of the Latin rite, a band of Italian Carmelites were sent to 
effect a reconciliation in 1657. Failing in this, the Pope appointed 
one of the Carmelites as vicar apostolic and withdrew the Saint 
Thomas Christians from the Padroado jurisdiction. This arrangement 
prevailed, with occasional modifications, until the Syriac Christians 
were given vicars apostolic and, in 1924, a hierarchy of their own. 
The present archdiocese of Verapoly, with its suffragan see of Quilon, 
on the Malabar coast, are the outgrowth of the old Malabar vicariate. 


The Hindustani-Tibet mission was begun by Italian Capuchins in 
1703. It included the northern domains of the Great Mogul. From 
1704 to 1808, thirty bands of Capuchin missionaries came out to 
India, varying in number from two to twelve. From this old mission- 
have come the dioceses of Agra, Allahabad, Lahore, Ajmere, and 
Simla, still in charge of Capuchins, plus a newly constituted diocese of 
Patna, recently confided to American Jesuits. 

French Jesuits and missionaries of the Paris Foreign Mission 
Seminary began operations from Pondicherry, the French colony 
founded by Bishop Palu, in 1674, and went westward as far as 
Malabar. This work was seriously hampered by the ruthless persecu- 
tion of the savage Sultan Tippoo of Mysore. Torture and death were 
used to effect the forcible conversion of Christians to Moham- 
medanism. Perhaps ‘tthe most striking personality of these French 
missionaries was the scholarly Abbe Dubois, who reached Pondicherry 
in 1792. To him was assigned the difficult task of reconciling the 
unfortunate Christians perverted by the Sultan Tippoo. At the capital 
alone he won back eighteen hundred apostates. For twenty years or 
more, he labored in Mysore, adopting the natives’ dress and social 
customs, to win their confidence. His agricultural schools, and his 
service in promoting vaccination against smallpox show his missionary 
statesmanship. During his leisure hours, the Abbe wrote down his 
observations on Hindu customs. The manuscript was translated into 
English and published in London by the Hast India Company in 1816. 


26 INDIA - 1925 


“This is the honestest book of the time,’ the poet Coleridge wrote on 
the margin of his copy, ‘as written by a Frenchman, that I have 
ever read.” With him agree scholars and statesmen of East and West 
down to our own day, for the book is still a classic. 

The French Revolution and the suppression of the Jesuits cut off 
the supply of missionaries to such an extent that, for want of priests, 
the Faith waned and died out in many a neglected field. In 1834 
Gregory XVI tried to reorganize the wreckage and sent new recruits 
into the field. The restored Jesuits he sent to their old field, Madura. 
To Bengal, Madras, and Ceylon he gave new vicars apostolic, and many 
other vicariates were established and entrusted to the new missionary 
societies and congregations which sprang up at the time: the Oblates 
of Mary, Missionaries of St. Francis de Sales, the Milan Foreign Mis- 
sionaries, Mill Hill, and the Congregation of Holy Cross. 

The difficulties between the Padroado and Propaganda mission- 
aries, where the two jurisdictions overlapped, caused many disedifying 
conflicts. A settlement was arrived at in 1886 when the Indian 
hierarchy was established. The two jurisdictions were limited within 
definite boundaries. The archbishop of Goa was made patriarch 
of the East Indies, with the suffragan sees of] Cochin, Mylapore, and 
Damaun. A series of isolated mission centers in southern India and 
in Bengal were attached to the diocese of Mylapore. With the excep- 
tion of the Syriac Province, all the other dioceses, vicariates, and 
prefectures apostolic were placed under Propaganda and are today 
administered by that Sacred Congregation in Rome. The benefit of 
these ecclesiastical arrangements in India may be judged from the 
results of the past fifty years. These years have been more productive 
of conversions than the previous three hundrd and fifty. From a 
total of 1,310,000 Catholics in 1871, the Church has grown to more 
than 3,000,000 in 1924. 

American Missionaries 

Last to arrive on the Indian scene were the missionaries from 
America. There are only two American societies that conduct mis- 
sions in India, the Congregation of Holy Cross and the Jesuits. 

The Congregation of Holy Cross has been in Bengal (present 
diocese of Dacca) since 1853. Up to 1903, when the mother house 
of the society was transferred from France to the United States, the 
American participation in the Bengal mission amounted to little more 
than the supplying of three bishops, Monsignors Louage, Hurth, and 
Linenborn, and a dozen missionaries. Since then, however, the two 
American provinces of the United States and Canada practically supply 
all the mission personnel. 

“The Bengalese,’’ a foreign mission monthly publication in behalf 
of Holy Cross missions, was founded at Holy Cross College, Wash- 
ington, D. C., in 1919, and, through the friends of this periodical, a 
special foreign mission seminary was opened in September, 1924, for 
those theological students of Holy Cross who volunteer for missions 


INDIA - 1925 ; 27 


through a fourth vow. The Sisters of Holy Cross have also been 
associated with the Holy Cross mission by opening an establishment 
in conjunction with the Foreign Mission Seminary,.where they assist 
in the publication of ‘The Bengalese’ while preparing for the 
apostolate. 

As a consequence of the World War, a second American com- 
munity came to India. In 1916 the American Jesuits were called upon 
to send men to take the place of the German Jesuits repatriated or 
interned by the British Government in Bombay and Poona. The 
Maryland-New York Province of the Society sent four Fathers and two 
scholastics, who remained until the war was over and were then 
recalled to the United States. All returned save one scholastic, 
Henry P. McGlinchey, S.J., the brother of the well known director of 
the Propagation of the Faith in Boston. Young McGlinchey had lain 
down his gallant life in the service of the mission at Karachi in the 
Bombay Archdiocese. The Missouri province sent their quota of four 
priests, Fathers Westropp, Bennett, Kieffer and Rudden, and these 
remained in India, for in 1919 the Holy See assigned to the care of 
the Missouri Jesuits the newly -constituted diocese of Patna. In 
January, 1921, a fresh band of five priests departed from St. Louis 
to begin work in the new mission, and the other four Fathers in 
Bombay have been gradually transferred to Patna. An experienced 
Belgian Jesuit from Calcutta, Monsignor Louis Van Hoeck, who made 
a brilliant record in organizing Choto Nagpur’s school system, was 
appointed as the first bishop of Patna. The “Patna Mission Letter’’ 
gives bright news of the Jesuit mission in India. This periodical is 
published monthly at St. Louis. 

The two American mission fields, at Dacca and Patna, are both 
on the Ganges, only three hundred miles apart. Hardly fifty mis- 
sionaries in all, this little group forms the pioneer nucleus of what 
Wwe may hope will one day be a noble army of American priests, 
brothers, sisters, and lay missionaries in the land of the Indus and 
the Ganges. 


Round Table Aids for Chapter Four 
I. GENERAL INVESTIGATON AIDS 


Chapter Issue or Thesis: Unlike Catholic foreign missions elsewhere, the 
apostolate in India not only antedates the proclamation of the Gospel in most of 
Christian Europe, but also holds a unique place in every succeeding period of 
missionary achievement. 

Prove this by enumerating six facts. 


II. SPECIAL INVESTIGATION QUESTIONS 


1. Was Saint Thomas in India? 

References: Catholic Encylopedia, article “‘The St. Thomas Christians’’ by 
Bishop Medleycott. MEDLEYCOTT, India and the Apostle St. Thomas. THURSTON, 
Review of Father Dahlman’s “Die Thomas-'Legende’’ (The Month, August, 1912). 
The Bengalese, April, 1922, p. 5. : 

2. Who was Robert de Nobili, S.J.? 

References: DEHMEN, Robert de Nobili. ‘Catholic Encyclopedia, article 
“Nobili.”’ CASTETS, The Madura Mission. 

8. Who was Costanzo Beschi? 

References: HOUPERT, Life of Father Beschi, S.J. (I. C. T. S. pamphlet). 
MIRANDA, Robert de Nobili (I. C. T. S. pamphlet). 


28 INDIA - 1925 


4. What evidences of at-homeness do the Catholics of the Risener tee Rite 
manifest ? 

References: GILLE, Christianity at Home in India. 

5. What is the story of Portuguese discovery in India? 

‘Reference: JAYNE, Vasco da Gama and His Successors. 

6. What are the leading facts about Catholic American mission work in India? 

References: The Bengalese, Vols. I-V. Various editions of Patna Mission 
Letter. MATHIS, With the Holy Cross in Bengal. 


Ill ACHIEVEMENT DISCUSSION SUGGESTIONS 


1. Model a bust or paint a picture of Saint Francis Xavier, or write a drama 
or an essay about this modern apostle of the East Indies. 

References: Lives of Saint Francis’ Xavier by M. T. Kelley, and by Father 
Martindale, S.J., in the series: ‘In God’s Army—Commander-in-Chief.”” SETH- 
SMITH, The Firebrand of Zs Indies. Saint Francis Xavier’s Method (The Month, 
December, 1922). 


CHAPTER FIVE 
HOBNOBBING WITH THE MISSIONARIES 


The missionary One actually meets in Hindustan is more or less 
true to the types demanded by the various stages reached in the Cath- 


Olic occupation of India. 


The Vicar and the Chaplain 

The Portuguese missions were founded in the first instance to 
minister to the spiritual needs of Portugal’s traders and soldiers. In 
this, other colonizing nations followed Portugal’s example. The 
modern missionary inherits these legacies, which have survived in 
the form of parishes, over which is placed a vicar and military and 
railroad chaplaincies, whose chaplains administer to the descendants 
of Europeans and Anglo-Indians. These duties are much the same 
as those of similar posts in Christian: lands. 

There is another form of parish which has a different origin, the 
natural development of the mission center which had been established 
é&mcng converts from non-Christian belief. In the selection of mis- 
sionaries to act as vicars and often as chaplains, the policy of giving 
these posts to native priests, thus permitting the foreign missionary 
to work among the pagans, is followed in some dioceses. 


Missionary Work from Catholic Centers 

The type of missionary one meetS most frequently in India is a 
priest who is in charge of a mission center built up by on’e means or 
another in the past, from which the missionary works out into virgin 
soil. Some of the converts from the old centers, driven by famine 
or other economic causes, move away in search of a better livelihood. 
These wandering sheep the missionary must seek out and fortify 
with the sacraments. Thus, besides his flock at the central station, 
where he sometimes has the services of sisters in the schools, the 
missionary will come to have a score or more of sub-stations over 


INDIA - 1925 : 29 


which he places a resident lay catechist who does everything but 
administer the sacraments—a few families in one village, an entire 
village farther on, and so on around the circle. The care of such a 
scattered Catholic population, living in an atmosphere which is satu- 
rated with traditional pagan superstitions, leaves missionaries of this 
type little time for organized effort on a large scale among the pagan 
population. : Yet, every missionary has abundant opportunity of 
making contact with pagans which will be utilized according to each 
missionary’s zeal and capacity. A marriage, a baptism, or a funeral 
afford opportunities which the missionary uses to preach the Catholic 
Faith for the benefit of interested pagan spectators. His very ar- 
rival in a village is sometimes an event attracting pagans along with 
the Faithful. In some districts he is besieged by callers who come, 
like Nicodemus, in secret, to inquire after the Christian religion. In 
other districts he is invited to accept the hospitality of the humble 
pagan villagers. Other opportunities come with his work of adjusting 
disputes, administering cholera specifics, giving advice and establish- 
ing cooperative banks for the Indian peasant who is ground into serf- 
dom by money sharks and merciless landlords. 
Missionaries to the Pagans 

This is of course the glorious work on the front line trenches 
upon which every true missionary has fixed his heart. Hardly any 
two conversions happen in precisely the same way. Accordinzly, 
there are no laws or formulas for convert-making, save only that of 
the true apostle, to try to save others by saving first himself. Then, 
when things look blackest, the miracle happens, and a movement to- 
ward the Church, sometimes of whole villages, has begun. The Choto 
Nagpur mission of western Bengal, conducted by the Belgian Jesuits 
of Calcutta, required many years of suffering and misunderstanding, 
of brave battling in the courts of the land for the rights of peasants 
against money sharks and landlords. Then suddenly the peasants 
began to respond. More quickly than elsewhere the response became 
a movement, so general in its scope that within ten years after it was 
initiated, from 1910 to 1920, the major portion of more than a thou- 
sand converts from paganism were not only baptized but also ele- 
vated socially, economically and educationally to a degree for which 
there is no parallel anywhere in modern missionary work. 

Then again a movement toward the Church may be started at 
the initiative of pagans, or it may have its origin in the enemies of 
the Catholic name. An especially consoling example of such a sponta- 
neous decision occurred in the Dacca Diocese about fifteen years ago, 
among the Garo hillsmen, during the administration of Bishop 
Hurth, of Dacca. 

A delegation of Garos traveled one hundred miles to ask the 
bishop for a priest to instruct them in the Catholic Faith. This was 
impossible at the time. So the bishop gave them a supply of cate- 
chisms and prayers printed in Bengali and promised to send a priest 
when he would be able to do so. The Garos returned to their homes 


30 : INDIA - 1925 


and told the story of their kindly reception among their neighbors. 
On their next visit to Dacca they knew their prayers by heart and 
their catechism word for word. In 1914, under Bishop Linneborn, a 


resident missionary was given them, and today a small mass move- 
ment is under way. 


The Missionary’s Lieutenants—The Lay Catechists 


The fewness of missionaries and the limits to the endurance of 
every missionary, even could he find the time to be always on the 
tour of his scattered flock and were there no rainy season to make 
travel impossible, makes it imperative for him to find some sort of 
lay assistants. It is to the native catechist that he turns for aid. A 
trained and salaried lieutenant, the catechist can be employed in the 
preparatory and follow-up stages of the missionary’s task. If he is 
unable himself to respond to the call of a family or a village for in- 
struction, it is the catechist whom he sends. Having prepared the 
family or village for the visit of the missionary, the catechist remains 
after their baptism to instruct the neophythes more fully in their new 
faith. He is thus the mainstay of the Christian villages during the 
long, enforced absences of the missionary. No mission can extend 
its work very far without its band of catechists. 


Many catechists are but little more advanced in knowledge and 
morals than the neophytes whose instruction is confided to their care, 
and the proper training of the catechetical staff is one of the foremost 
of missionary problems. In many dioceses a central training school 
has been opened for the benefit of the old and the new catechists. 
As an example of the methods followed in these schools we may cite 
the regulations adopted by the Jesuits of Choto Nagpur in their new 
schcol at Tongo. Each of the twenty-one stations in the mission is 
allowed to send one candidate, who must be a married man with cer- 
tain prescribed preparatory experience. The candidate brings his 
wife and family and is assigned a cottage for his use during the ten 
months’ session. While the husband follows the classes in the school 
the wife receives instruction from the sisters of Tongo Convent. The 
men study catechism, Bible and Church history, apologetics, hymns 
and common agrarian law. The women take up catechism and Bible 
history, the writing of ordinary legal deeds and keeping of bank ac- 
counts, elementary medicine and hygiene, gardening and needlework. 
The successful candidates receive a certificate at the end of the 
course which entitles them to a salary of at least ten rupees a month. 
Every year in August the graduates return to Tongo for a retreat 


and further instructions upon the difficulties experienced during 


the year. 


Mission Incubating—The Schools 


Closely allied and sometimes identified with the catechists are 
the mission teachers. Schools are a necessity for missionary work 
in that they are the only practical means through which children 


can be assembled for a training in the Catholic religion. Schools are 


INDIA - 1925 31 
en i en le eal ER EY a Le ee ey SP 
also the surest agency for raising the standard of Christian converts 
and of attracting pagans. Schools and orphanages may be said to 
create Christian communities. Everywhere the people of India are 
eager for an education, which is indeed a luxury in a land where 
there is no universal or compulsory educational system. The experi- 
ence of one of the American missionaries in Patna illustrates this 
phase of missionary penetration very clearly. The missionary, Father 
Westropp, S.J., was recently assigned to the district of Choohari, 
and this is the report that he gives of his first tour around his 
new field: 

“T found the two hundred Christians here very nice people and 
willing to do almost anything I told them. Choohari lies like a little 
Catholic island in a sea of Hinduism. Upon inquiry I found that a 
large percentage of the population were outcasts and that they would 
ultimately not object to the Christian religion if we could supply them 
with schools. So I visited the various villages, of which there are 
hundreds in the neighborhood, and all showed their anxiety to have 
a school. Our object will be not to bother much with the old people 
but to teach the children the prayers and the Christian religion 
and bring them to church. 

“On market day I went over to the bazaar and I espied a nice 
little boy there running about. I gave him a copper, which he prompt- 
ly invested in a quart of plums, and I received a quart of affection 
in return. He is now an almost inseparable companion. By such 
devices I have opened a way into the children’s hearts. They now 
rather stay here than at home. 

“The next day I went over to a fishermen’s village nearby and 
I placed Saint Feter ‘in charge of their task. They, too, wanted a 
school. With Father Joachim we flew over the country on our 
bicycles, at which the children shouted with glee, as very likely 
they had never seen any animal like that before. Wherever we went 
we found very happy and affectionate children, all anxious for a 
school. 

“We should really have two scholastics (why not brothers?) 
to organize the schools here properly. We should also have, a con- 
vent of sisters somewhere up here, for they could open up a good 
English school. There is no getting away from the fact that the 
person who knows English is always the top dog anywhere out here 
and that he can always get higher pay and get much more authority.”’ 

Native Clergy and Religious 

India has almost aS many native priests as Japan, China and 
Indo-China combined, about fifteen hundred, and yet these are not 
nearly aS many as are necessary to administer to the Catholic popula- 
tion of the land. If the proper number were available, greater prog- 
ress could be made in the conversion of the country, for it would 
free many of the foreign missionaries, now serving the Catholic pop- 
ulation, for pioneer work among the non-Christian people. The em- 
phasis laid on the fostering of native clergy for India has been due 


32 INDIA - 1925 


largely to the providential insistence of Pope Leo XIII on this point. 
To crystallize his efforts in behalf of the native clergy, this Roman 
Pontiff established the papal seminary of Kandy and later that of 
Puthenpally in Malabar. The Kandy institution already numbers 
six Indian bishops among its alumni.. Besides these theological semi- 
naries there are some twenty-two others. Almost every diocese fol- 
lows some organized efforts in recruiting the native clergy and in fos- 
tering religious life. There are about three thousand native sisters 
in the land, and almost every religious order and congregation that 
is engaged in missionary work has a novitiate for priests and brothers. 

The most common institution, for recruiting not, only native 
priests and religious, but also lay catechists and lay teachers is the 
“apostolic school.” In Indo-China they use a more colorful name 
for this institution—the ‘House of God,’’ whither all those who wish 
to enter the divine Service come to complete their education and to 
be chosen for the special service for which they have an apitude. 
Father John Delaunay’s apostolic school at Bandhura, in the Holy 
Cross mission, is a good example of these institutions. The apostolic 
students live in a separate establishment close enough to our best 
jungle high school to enable them to attend its classes. All are ex- 
pected to finish the high school course, which approximates the first- 
year studies of our American colleges. The spiritual training goes 
hand in hand with the intellectual. The close contact of the director 
with the students enables him to pick those who are Suitable for the 
clerical and religious state from those who should be married and 
serve the missions as lay teachers and catechists. At the end of the 
course the Selection is made, the clerical and religious students en- 
tering either the seminary or novitiate and the prospective lay cate- 
chist and teacher being married off. 


Round Table Aids for Chapter Five 


I. GENERAL INVESTIGATION AIDS 


Chapter Issue or Thesis: From the types of missionaries one meets in India. 
it is clear that the total force of foreign missioners cannot be devoted, to the con- 
version of pagans until native priests can be recruited in sufficient numbers to 
eare for the Catholic population, 

Prove this by enumerating six facts. 


Il. SPECIAL INVESTIGATION, QUESTIONS 


1. How are mass movements to the Catholic Church actually started in India? 
References: The Bengalese, May, 1924, pp. 8 ff. Van Der SCHUEREN, The 
Belgian Mission of Bengal. 
2. How do boys and girls study in India? 
References: TAGORE, My Reminiscences. DAY, Bengal Peasant Life, Chaps. 
XII, XVII. 
3. Who are the lay catechists, how are they trained and what mission work 
do they do? 
References: The Bengalese, January, 1922; April, 1923. India and Its Missions, 
pp. 224 ff. Catholic Missions, October, 1920. 
4. What is the character of India’s first native religious orders for men, the 
Carmelite Tertiaries of the Syro-Malabar Rite? 
! References: Catholic Encyclopedia, article ‘‘Verapoly.” GILLE, Christian- 
ity at Home. MIRANDA, A Native Indian Clergy. 
_ ,5.. What is the character and work of a native sisterhood among the ab- 
Dates #8 7 Ags 
eferences: an Der UEREN, The Belgi issi ; i 
NEEion eM doe Thea ee: gian bat ies of Bengal. Catholic 


INDIA: - 1925 33 


III. ACHIEVEMENT DISCUSSION SUGGESTION 


Write a biography of the typical India missionary of today. 
References: The Bengalese, January, 1921, p, 70; March, 1925, pp. 6 ff. Van 
Der SCHUEREN, The Belgian, Mission of Bengal. 


CHAPTER SIX . 
THE WHITE ANGELS OF THE JUNGLE 


The unique opportunity which India offers to missionary women 
grows out of womankind’s place in Indian society. 


Behind the Purdah _ 

“Purdah” (‘“‘gosha” in the south) literally means veil or curtain. 
When applied to Indian social life it designates the barriers which 
were erected by the Hindus, at the time of the Mohammedan conquest, 
‘to shield the lives of their womenkind from the view of all men not 
of the immediate household. In the Hindu home the women occupy 
special quarters called the ‘‘zenana,’ and when they appear in public 
they are veiled, the higher the caste the more complete the veiling. 

The Hindu home opens almost always southward. The zenana 
is in the northern section of the house. The separation is effected 
by a veil, or by a corridor, or by a curtained vestibule. If the owner 
is rich, the women’s quarters are often built around an open court. 
Even among the poor of the lower castes an open space in the village 
or “‘bari’ is usually sacrosanct to the women. 


Life in the Zenana 

All the women and girls of an Indian household. comprise the 
membership of the zenana. As a householder’s sons bring their 
spouses to the paternal bari, the women folk of the zenana vary in 
number. Ten would be a good average. The queen of the zenana, 
and for that matter of the home, is the wife of the patriarch. So 
potent and universal is the sway of the house-mother over her own 
daughters and over her daughters-in-law that her virtues and foibles 
supply the bright and funny side to almost every piece of native 
literature. Every zenana usually has several] venerable ladies, grand- 
mothers, aunts, or widows of the household. Perhaps they, more 
than any other agents, are the most powerful forces of Hinduism, 
for they constitute a kind of family inquisition, scenting innovations 
and insisting upon practices hallowed by hoary tradition. 

The first thought of an Indian maiden on waking in the morning 
are of God, voiced in the ejaculation: “Ram, Ram, Sita, Ram.’ Ram 
is a god and Sita is the model Hindu woman. After rising, the first 
act is to pour water in liberation of the spirits of the dead who may 


34 INDIA - 1925 


be lurking around the tulsi plant or before the household gods whose 
images are placed on the family altar, which is often only a shelf 
in the corner or a niche within the wall. The wealthier Hindus have 
a private oratory. There is also frequently an oratory for, the whole 
population of a village. A cheerful procession of the zenana inmates 
then winds its way to the river, creek, or tank for the morning bath, 
which is prayerfully and modestly made without removing the sari. 
At this time the statues of the household gods and goddesses aré 
piously bathed. For higher caste zenanas, the procession and bath 
are veiled from public view by enclosures, 


The bath over, women and girls return to the zenana to pare and 
slice vegetables and to prepare the rice, ghee, and condiments for the 
mid-day meal. This, as well as all work that can possibly be so done, 
is performed by women seated either on mats or on low wooden 
platforms. The meal is then cooked, but before tasting it the whole 
household takes another bath, and then repairs to family altar or 
oratory for a short prayer (usually for some temporal favors). 

If time permits, a portion of the sacred books is chanted. The 
favorite zenana books are the epic Ramayana, the Gita, and the, 
Lachmi Puran (the story of the goddess of luck). Frequently also 
other “pujas’’ (acts of worship) are performed, especially “arti” (the 
offering of fire). This is offered to various deities, accompanied by 
the ringing of a bell which announces the puja to passers-by. In the 
evening the fire is carried through the house and incense is placed 
in it to drive out the evil spirits. Louder bell-ringing announces 
another puja, the feeding of the gods. A tithe of rice is each day 
set aside for this purpose. 

After the gods have been attended to, the family assembles in 
the courtyard, if possible, for the mid-day'meal. The men and boys 
of the house are served first, with the utmost devotion, by the 
women. The women and girls patiently await their turn: The time 
is often taken up in feeding apart small boys and girls and also by 
learning riddles from some venerable dame. The inmates of the 
zenana eat in a small enclosed square in the kitchen. This is a 
sacred place into which no alien foot may tread. 

After the mid-day meal the men either go back to their work or 
more frequently to sleep, and the women, of the zenana assemble on 
a mat to sew. While they sew one of the older ladies reads from a 
book, teaches reading and writing, or tells a tale until sleep stills her 
tongue. From noon till early evening, at least during the warm 
weather, all nature, even the crow, nods. 


Between three and four o’clock the house-mother arouses the 
zenana for the work of the evening. ‘‘Pan”’ is first prepared. It is a 
narcotic leaf, smeared with catouchan and slacked lime, and in it are 
wrapped chopped betel nuts and spices. A clove is stuck into the 
leaf to hold it-together in a three-cornered billet shape.. Pan is eaten 
everywhere and at all times. The rice is then husked, or grain is 


INDIA - 1925 35 


ground into meal. The children’s and girls’ hair is oiled and combed. 
Such great pains are taken with the hair that the art of plaiting is 
one of the zenana’s principal sources of rivalry, jealousy, and tears. 


When the preparations for the evening meal are well under way, 
the older women oil and dress their own hair. The same care and 
fuss is shown by the grown-ups in the adornment of their black 
tresses. The widow alone sits by with shaven head to make sugges- 
tions and to help others adorn what is denied her by Hindu practice. 


After sunset, there is the evening bath. The gods, too, must be 
bathed again and put to bed. The altar is covered and the oratory 
is closed for the night. The twilight is spent in garden, courtyard, 
on the roof or terrace. This/is the time for folk-lore in the zenana. 
Children and girls crowd around the most elderly of the women for 
the story. An oft repeated tale or a new one is told. The eager 
listeners follow with open eyes and mouths the strange oriental 
stories of which we have some glimpses in Aladdin with his lamp 
and Ali Baba with his forty thieves. 

The evening meal is much like the mid-day, curry and rice, 
except that the former is a bit lighter. When the meal is over, the 
zenana either retires to rest or gathers for playing cards or “pachisi.” 
There is a variety of card games, and pachisi is played with counters 
on a board which resembles a Maltese cross. At last, night and sleep 
overtake all, and the zenana is at peace. 

India’s High Priestesses 

Life within the zenana, as described in the preceding paragraphs, 
is so highly spiced with religious acts that it will not be necessary 
to enlarge upon the subject here. Yet the singular fact that Hindu 
religious devotion is so largely ruled from the zenana must be 
pointed out and the source of this power noted. Practical Hindu 
life is the faithful carrying out of a system of minute regulations 
that rules meat and drink, all the natural functions and personal 
wants of the body, dress, recreation, coming and going, and every 
want, ordinary and incidental, of each life. There are exact rules 
for birth, betrothal, marriage, and death. The women, especially 
the elder and aged, are the hinges on which these rules depend. 
By circumscribing woman’s education and activities to the narrow 
limits of the zenana, religion became woman’s only outlet and recre- 


ation, her only wand of power. 


Opportunity for Women Missionaries | 

The opportunities of women missionaries grow out of the zenana 
and woman’s power in the field of religion. It is clear that the con- 
version of purdah women cannot be effected by missionary men, 
foreign or native. As men, they are barred from the zenana. Mis- 
sionary women, on the other hand, may enter behind the veil. With 
a good knowledge of the language, and with a little aptitude in the 
corporal works of mercy, contact can be established by them between 


36 INDIA - 1925 


the Church and the zenana. The conquest of the zenana is also 
practically essential for subsequent missionary work among the men 
folk of the Hindu household, for as high priestess of Hinduism the 
woman will see to it that no other religion save the one which meets 
her approval will be tolerated. 


The Work of the Missionary Sisters 


The institutional relief of destitution and suffering in orphanages, 
leper asylums, dispensaries, homes for the aged, and for widows, 
hospitals, and convent schools of India is largely in the hands of 
nuns, both Huropean and Indian. There are over sixty different 
communities of sisters at work. The following list of institutions may 
be informational: foundling asylums, 12; orphanages, 202; homes for 
aged poor, 23; widows’ homes, 17; leper asylums, 6; dispensaries, 68; 
and hospitals, 6. ‘Besides the six Catholic hospitals, there are eleven 
government hospitals in which sisters or Catholic lay nurses have 
charge of various departments. Of course, it must be borne in mind 
that, besides institutional relief, a great deal of charity is performed 
by the individual missionary which in the aggregate amounts to much 
more than the former. 


“Nine-tenths of the children brought to the creche are poor, 
miserable weaklings,’’ writes Bishop Cappius of Kumbakoman, ‘‘whom 
death has already marked with its seal, and it is their good angels 
that have brought them in order to make little paradise-thieves of 
them.’ In one year six thousand of these dying babies were baptized 
by the Sister Catechists of Mary Immaculate in their six dispensaries 
and while on tour in the diocese of Kumbakonam. 


The Little Sisters of the Poor maintain homes for the aged in five 
Indian centers where they care for from five to six hundred persons, 
gathering the necessary support for them by daily begging. The 
Franciscan Missionaries of Mary also have similar institutions. The 
cheerful family spirit of the poor old people at their Mylapore home 
and the sisters’ work in rescuing the aged women of Bombay slums 
touched me deeply. | 


A special social problem of India is that of the widow. According 
to Hindu teaching, the widow, by her sins, is the cause of her hus- 
band’s death. Formerly she was burned alive on the funeral pyre of 
her deceased husband. She is therefore an object of reproach, 
assigned to a corner of the Indian hut and forbidden to remarry. The 
prevalence of child marriages leaves thousands of girls widows at an 
early age. Their only means of support is to seek employment in 
large cities, which often involves grave moral dangers. To meet this 
problem, at least ten dioceses have established homes where widows 
can find shelter and suitable employment. Workshops for husking 
rice and weaving cloth are attached to some homes. So successful 
has this apostolate been that an order of nuns, recruited only from 
widows, has been established at Trichinopoly. 


INDIA - 1925 37. 


The Catholic Medical Apostolate.is better organized in India than 
perhaps in any other pagan land. The word ‘‘apostolate” is deservedly 
applied to the labors of the ‘medical missionary. The quiet of a 
hospital ward, seconded by the cheerful and prayerful example of the 
sisters, induces many a patient to review the state of -his conscience 
and to seek a reconciliation with God, while pagan and Protestant 
patients are led to ask for the healing waters of baptism. Thus, the 
Franciscan Missionaries of Mary, in charge of the pauper wards at 
the Colombo General Hospital, are instrumental in” effecting the 
baptism of about nine hundred patients each year. ae 


A special phase of the medical apostolate in India is the work 
among Hindu women, who for the most part are secluded behind the 
curtains of the zenana and who prefer death to medical treatment 
by male physicians not of the household. The Sister Catechists of 
Mary Immaculate specialize in this work, through their Gosha Hospital 
at Kumbakoman and their dispensaries, which are of two types— 
stationary and traveling. During 1921 these Sisters paid thirty thou- 
sand visits to sick women of zenanas, besides treating 13,220 cases at 
their five dispensaries in the Kumbakoman Diocese. Both from the 
medical and from the religious point of view, the traveling woman’s 
dispensary is the thing for India. 


The Lay Woman Missionary 


At present the only practical work for lay women missionaries 
in India is the medical apostolate. There are two foreign missionary 
doctors and four foreign missionary nurses in the field. Dr. Anna 
Dengel is an Austrian young lady who studied medicine at the Uni- 
versity of Cork, Ireland, and, after receiving her degree, took a posi- 
tion at St. Catherine’s Hospital, Rawal Pindi, Punjab. This hospital 
1s at present directed by the Franciscan Missionaries of Mary, and it 
was established by the pioneer in the modern medical apostolate for 
Catholics, a convert, Dr. Agnes McLaren, who went to India as a mis- 
sionary when she was past eighty years of age. The other doctor is 
Catherine O’Connor, M.D., a young Irish physician and surgeon, who 
went out to India as a medical missionary in February, 1923. Dr. 
O’Connor is stationed at the Gosha Hospital of Kumbakonam. The 
four nurses are the pioneer Catholic medical missionaries from the 
United States. They are serving in a government hospital at Akyab, 
Arakan, Burma, a part of the American Holy Cross mission to India. 
The nurses went out in the fall of 1924 under the joint auspices of the 
Holy Cross missions and of the Medical Mission Board of the Catholic 
Hospital Association of the United States and Canada. 


Round Table Aids for Chapter Six 


I GENERAL INVESTIGATION AIDS 


Chapter Issue or Thesis: There is a unique opportunity at present for the 


woman missionary in India. 
Prove this by enumerating six facts. 


38 INDIA - 1925 


Il. SPECIAL INVESTIGATION QUESTIONS 


1. What is the status of woman in India? 

References: CATTEL, Behind the Purdah. Indian Women of the Outside 
(Asia, October, 1924). 

z. Why is Gonesh the favorite god of the zenana? 

References: Behind the Purdah, pp. 17 ff. Indian women of the Outside 
(Asia, October, 1924). 

3. What), are the striking, characteristics of Indian folk-lore? 

References: The Singing Voice of India (Asia, October, 1924). Du BOIS and 
BEAUCHAMP, Hindu Manners, Customs and Ceremonies. 

4. How are marriages arranged and celebrated in Hindustan? 

Keferences: ‘Ihe Bengalese, February, 1921, p. 93; April, 1924, p. 7. Asia, 
April, 1924. (Behind the Purdah, pp. 77 ff. 

5. What is the position of the widow in the Indian household? 

References: The Bengalese, August, 1922. Behind the Purdah, pp. 42 ff. and 
88 ff. In the Indian Mofussil (Asia, June, 1924). 

6. What is the status of the Catholic medical apostolate in India? 

References: India, a Medical Survey (Catholic Hospital Progress, February 
and March, 1924. KEELER, India, a Medical Survey (‘Catholic Medical Missions). 


Ill. ACHIEVEMENT DISCUSSION SUGGESTION 


Write a short story taken from Indian folk-lore for The Shield. 
References: The Bengalese, November, December, 1924; February, 1925. 
CATTELL, Behind the Purdah., 


CRIAR CE RSSEMEN 


CATHOLICS AND SOCIAL ACTION 


Every nation and tribe is at home in the Catholic Church. The 
divine mark of Catholicity makes it so. Another divine mark makes 
Catholics one, in doctrine and morals. And yet each nation expresses 
the one true doctrine externally in its own way, which often varies 
throughout the world. 


Catholics as You and I 

The striking diversity and contrast in India’s population and country 
are reflected in the Catholic population of India, as in everything 
Indian (on a national scale). To complicate things still further, the 
tnree bodies of Catholic Indians, Syriac, Padroada, and Propaganda, 
are each relatively strong and tenacious of their rights. And yet, in 
spite of diversity and difference, the Catholics of India are much like 
the Catholics the world over. 

The south of India is farthest advanced in diocesan organization, 
while the north remains, for the most part, in the difficult pioneering 
stage. Three-fourths of the Catholics of India live south of a line 
drawn west from Cafcutta to Bombay. The one particularly bright 
spot in the north is the Choto Nagpur plateau, in the archdiocese of 
Calcutta, where what is known as a mass movement has developed, 
within forty-three years, a flourishing community of almost 200,000 
converts. 


INDIA -.1925 39 


The Oriental Atmosphere of Catholic Indian Devotion 
Among the Syriac Christians the Church has long been “at home” 
in a distinctly Indian setting. This fact was brought home to me ina 
striking manner at a High.Mass in Trichur. The sanctuary choir 
was accompanied by typical Indian musical instruments, drums, 
cymbals, and other contrivances which, to the western ear, would be 
good noise-producers. 


Perhaps the most characteristic feature of Catholic devotion for 
all India is the pilgrimage. I had the happiness of witnessing the 
greatest of these, the pilgrimage to the miraculously preserved body 
of Saint Francis Xavier at Goa, on the occasion of the most recent 
exposition of this missionary’s hallowed remains. The pilgrimage 
meant a journey of more than a thousand miles by railways, steam- 
boats, and bullock carts. At almost every railway station in Mysore 
we met groups of pilgrims who were en route either to Goa or 
returning from the exposition. ‘Phe Catholic atmosphere of these 
groups was most attractive. The pilgrims said their morning and 
evening prayers aloud, and huddled together at night to suffer 
patiently the cold of these Deccan highlands. The closer we 
approached to Goa, the more frequent were the groups, until event- 
ually the returning and the newly arriving pilgrims formed an almost 
unbroken procession. Each family carried its own babies, cuisine 
(several brass and earthern pots), and bedding. The exposition 
grounds were literally swarming with pilgrims. Some idea of the 
numbers may be gathered from the fact that a daily average of 12,000 
kissed the feet of Saint Francis’ holy body. 


The Church of the Bom Jesu, once the chapel of the Jesuit com- 
munity in Goa, is distinguished by the fact that it contains the beau- 
tiful marble tomb of Saint Francis Xavier. During the exposition, 
however, the gold and silken coffin is ‘removed from the tomb and 
placed in a golden catafalque. In the catalque itself there are 
large apertures for glass windows through which One can easily see 
the incorrupt body of the Saint. The lower end of the catafalque is 
opened at seven in the morning and closed again at sundown. It is 
here that the pilgrims come to kiss and touch their religious articles 
to the body of Saint Francis Xavier. 

The incorrupt body of the Saint and the daily miracles about 
the catafalque created an atmosphere of the miraculous. It is prac- 
tically impossible to ascertain the number of miracles wrought at this 
exposition of the Saint’s body, because the crowds were so huge, each 
pilgrim was left to shift for himself, and the Indian piety prefers to 
keep such heavenly favors as profound secrets. Mr. Pais, the secre- 
tary of the Catholic All-India Conference, told me, however, that he 
witnessed the deposition of two cures of blindness, before the Goa 
Medical Station, as well as one cure for lameness. The latter miracle 
received much publicity because the favor was granted to the brother 
of a well known Bombay physician, Dr. Jacob D’Sousa. 


40 INDIA - 1925 


Modern Troubadours 


One of the gifts of the Indian is a capacity for improvising poetry, 
and this he turns to account in learning and expounding his Faith. 
During the long evenings of Lent or the happy festivities of Christmas 
week, the younger men of a Christian village enact religious plays in 
which the dialogue, though based upon the Scripture narative, is often 
improvised on the spot. Even the questions and answers of the cate- 
chism are elaborated and chanted rather than recited, a practice 
which often constitutes one of the items in a village:celebration of any 
kind. It is said that Saint Francis Xavier began this interesting way 
of teaching Christian doctrine. Father Desrochers, C.S.C., tells some 
interesting stories of his cathechists and their talent for improvisation: 


“This Indian facility for improvising finds frequent expression in 
our training school for cathechists at Toomiliah. Here the catechists, 
having mastered the necessary dogmas of Catholic Faith, are given 
an opportunity for practice in explaining what they have learned. 
Teaching catechism, giving instructions, answering questions, are the 
ordinary forms made use of, but the ‘passalie’ is the favorite of the 
young students. 


“This is a catechetical:-joust, a dogmatic combat, in which the 
catechists, divided into two opposing forces, seek to vanquish their 
opponents by proposing questions beyond the latter’s learning. It 
is more than a prosaic disputation, since the responses are in verses, 
improvised then and there, and sung to the melody of some familiar 
song. 


Cooperative Banks 


Seventy-three per cent of India’s population lives from hand to 
mouth, from the soil. If the monsvon fails or arrives prematurely, the 
peasant’s little crop of rice is a failure. So small is the margin of 
profit that the sudden death of a bullock with which he cultivates 
his small acreage is nothing short of a calamity. For the money with 
which to buy a new bullock, he must apply to the rapacious money- 
lender, whose rate of interest varies from 37% to 150 per cent. Within 
a few years these exorbitant interest rates make a serf of the peasant. 

To help his people and to secure a hearing among the pagans, the 
missionary must turn banker. From one charitable source or another 
he accumulates a little capital, and with it he proceeds to establish a 
paddy bank, or something equivalent. Father Maurice Norckhauer, 
C.S.C., gives a brief explanation of how he undertook to meet this 
situation among his people in the marsh lands of south Bengal: , 


“With the money you sent me I have bought paddy (unprepared 
rice), almost a ton of it. Later I will give this over to some poor 
widows to husk. They will get about one-fourth of it for their work, 
another fourth will disappear ag waste husks, and in the end I will 
have nearly half a ton of prepared rice, which will be worth almost 
twice the amount of your donation. 


INDIA - 19215 41 


“At rice harvest-time the people are short of money. They have 
plenty of rice, but no cash to buy cloth and other necessary articles. 
The rice merchants buy all the rice the people will sell, and they get it 
at a low price. But as-the year goes on, the people will run out of 
rice and} will have to buy. The merchants then make a tremendous 
profit. 

“There is where I come in. I sell the rice which I have bought 
and had prepared, and sell it without the rice merchant’s exorbitant 
profit. The profit that I do make goes, in turn, to the relief of other 
very poor people—and there are none poorer than these people of 
mine. I am looking after the widows and the children especially. 
Now you know where your money is going and what it is doing.”’ 

Other Lay Associations 

Assisting the missionary priests and nuns in the noble task of 
relieving misery and destitution are a large number of societies of 
laymen, some of which are branches of associations common to all 
Catholic countries, and others peculiar to India. The St. Vincent de 
Paul Conferences are an example of the international type of socie- 
ties. In India, Bombay has the largest number of conferences of 
St. Vincent de Paul, the first having been organized at Bombay as 
far back as 1862. Today there are twenty-seven conferences in the 
Presidency, giving relief to the deserving poor in food, clothing, and 
money to the value of about 12,000 rupees annually. There are seven 
conferences in Calcutta, three in Hyderabad, and others in Nagpur, 
Ceylon and Burma. Visiting the poor in their homes, assisting the 
needy, and caring for neglected youth, constitute the principal works 
of the St. Vincent de Paul Society in India. 


Still more numerous are the sodalities of the Blessed Virgin, 
which are established in every diocese and are now in process of being 
united into a_ federation of sodalities for all of India. A monthly 
organ, the ‘‘Morning Star,” is published for the sodalists at Trichi- 
nopoly, South India, and has a circulation of nearly three thousand. 
Many sodalists engage in social welfare work. But perhaps the most 
important activity of the sodalists is the publication and distribution 
of the hundred-odd tracts of the Catholic Truth Society of India. 

In the Wake of the Marian Congress 

One of the first national gatherings of Catholics anywhere in the 
Orient was the Marian Congress, held at Madras in January, 1921. 
Nearly every diocese and vicariate was represented by its most eminent 
Catholics, ecclesiastical and lay. The object of the Congress was to 
do honor to the Mother of God and to promote Catholic social action. 
In achieving the latter end, perhaps the outstanding accomplishments 
are the organization and subsequent programs of the All-India Catholic 
Conference and the movement now under way at Calcutta, Hyderabad, 
and other centers to promote the investigation of social problems 
through Catholic and social study clubs. 


42 INDIA - 1925 


The programs of the All-India Catholic Conferences include 
papers on the legal disability of Catholics, many varieties of Catholic 
cooperative societies, missionary crusades, educational associations, a 
Catholia news service, and social study clubs. 

One of the chief promoters of the social study clubs is Father 
Gille, S.J., the brilliant editor of the ‘‘Catholic Herald of India.’’ He 
has published, among other Works, three textbooks for the members of 
his Calcutta social study clubs: ‘‘The Catholic Family,” a ‘Dictionary 
for Social Students,’”’ and ‘“‘A Christian Social Crusade.’ The Catholics 
of Bombay have also taken a praiseworthy part in what is perhaps 
the most gigantic social work of any municipality, the housing of the 
homeless thousands who flock to this city to secure employment. 


Round Table Aids for Chapter Seven’ 


I. GENERAL INVESTIGATION AIDS 


Chapter Issue or Thesis: The Catholic Church is at home in every tribe and 
nation. And yeti each nation expresses the one true doctrine externally in its own 
way, which often varies throughout the world and is peculiarly interesting in India. 

Prove this by enumerating six facts. 


Il. SPECIAL INVESTIGATION QUESTIONS 


1. What are the legal disabilities of Catholics in India? 

References: The Bengalese, June, 1925. SALDANHA, Civil Ecclesiastical Law 
in India (I. C. T. S. pamphlet). 

2. To what extent do caste restrictions survive among Catholics in India? 

References: India and Its Missions, pp. 278 ff. To Defend the Cross (story of the 
Fourth General Convention of the Catholic Students’ Mission Crusade at the 
University of Notre Dame, 1923) pp. 65, 66. 

8. Is the body of Saint Francis XKavier preserved miraculously ? 

References: GILLE, To Xavier’s Tomb. The Bengalese, March, 1928. The 
Miracle of the Body of St. Francis Xavier (I. ‘C. T. S. pamphlet). 

4. What was the character, purpose, and achievement of the Marian Congress? 

References: Catholic Missions, May, 1921, pp. 99 ff. The Bengalese, April, 
RSPB lei oy sa hes fie 

5. How do cooperative banking and insurance societies function on the foreign 
missions of India? 

References: Catholic Missions, February, 1922, pp. 36 ff. The Bengalese, April, 
1922, pp. 7 ff. Van Der SCHUEREN, The Belgian Mission of Bengal. 

6. Note the oriental atmosphere of Catholic religious celebrations. 

References: The Bengalese, September, 1922; March, 1923; December, 1924, 
Van Der SCHUEREN, The Belgian Mission of Bengal. GILLE, Christianity at 
Home in India. 


Ill. ACHIEVEMENT DISCUSSION SUGGESTION 


Write a paper on the Catholic social study clubs of India and how they function. 
References: The Bengalese, July, 1925. GILLE, The Catholic Family. GILLE, 
A Dictionary for Social Students. GILLE, A Christian Social Crusade. 


INDIA - 1925 43 


CHAPTER EIGHT 
CATHOLIC MISSION METHODS 


In India, on account of tremendous contrasts and great differ- 
ences, geographical, racial, social and linguistic, it is impossible to 
designate any one particular mission activity or method as being the 
most important for conversion to the Catholic Faith. We may, how- 
ever, characterize some six principal activities as being well fitted to 


extend God’s Kingdom under the peculiar conditions of this land. 


Care of the Native Catholic Population 

First of all, there is the care of the native Catholic population 
which numbers about three million souls. To administer and safe- 
guard this population and to fit it for its own peculiar mission serv- 
ice, in an atmosphere that is charged with age-old pagan traditions 
and superstitions, a large staff is required. Normally, this shepherding 
of the flock should be done by a native ministry. But, as a matter 
of fact, on account of the inadequate supply of native priests, many 
of the foreign missionaries must devote themselves to this work. 

It must not be inferred, however, that strenuous efforts are not 
being made to recruit the native clergy. In fact, on no other foreign 
mission field has such a concerted effort been made as in India and 
with more success. Pope Leo XIII insisted on the education of the 
native clergy to such an extent that he himself established two papal 
seminaries, Kandy and Puthenpally. There are altogether twenty- 
two theological seminaries with aS many preparatory schools. Yet, 
it is a striking fact, brought out by the 1925 Catholic India Directory, 
that the Indian clergy are not being recruited in what ought to be 
normal numbers, i. e., in a sufficient supply to care for native con- 
verts, thus allowing the foreign missionaries to engage in distinctly 
foreign mission work. From a missionary point of view too much 
attention cannot be given to the native Catholic population, because, 
as Pope Leo XIII has put it, it will only be the sons and daughters 
of India who will bring salvation to the teeming multitudes of this 
land. Hence, Indians themselves must be fitted to act as ambassadors 
of Christ. Catholic Indian educational, social and missionary societies 
are being organized and they are constantly doing’ much to translate 
into the convincing language of action the beneficent doctrines 
ef, Christ, 


Educational Missionaries 
In order that the Catholic population of India be safeguarded, 
it is essential that the missionaries weed out superstition. The only 
practical weapon to reach this end is the village school. It ought 


44 INDIA - 1925 


not to be required in America. to show the necessity of Catholic 
schools in a land like India. If we Catholics find it necessary to es- 
tablish and maintain a great parochial school system for the purpose 
of training and safeguarding the children of traditionally Catholic 
people in a Christian country, how much more necessary is not the 
Catholic school for children whose parents know little of the Catholic 
Faith and who live in an intensely pagan atmosphere? 

The official Government Indian Year Book for 1922 says of 
Catholic education: “The Roman Catholic Church ig honorably dis- 
tinguished by much activity and financial generosity in this respect. 
Her schools are to be found throughout the length and breadth of 
the Indian Empire; and they maintain a high standard of efficiency. 
The Anglican Church comes next, and the American Methodists have 
established some excellent schools in the large hill stations.’’ Catholic 
higher education is thus shown to be in fairly good shape. What 
is needed now, according to Father Gavan Duffy, is more teaching 
brothers, like the Brothers of the Holy Cross, who will supervise 
Catholic village education, both the normal schools for the training 


of native teachers and the work in the field, 
6 


Mission to Aborigines and to the Depressed Classes 

The aborigines are the descendants of the natives who were in 
the land when the Aryan invaders came, about the time in history 
when Moses led the. Israelites into the Promised Land. The Aryans 
separated themselves from the black-skinned aborigines by strict 
caste laws. They then sanctified these social restrictions by throwing 
about them the mantle of religion. There are about sixteen million 
aborigines and more than fifty-five million of the depressed classes. 
The latter are either outcastes or people of the very lowest caste. 

Missionary work among the aborigines and depressed classes pre- 
sents many opportunities for conversion in almost every one of the 
thirty-five dioceses and vicariates of India. The methods used are 
very simple, for these people have only a crude religious culture, 
which suffers by comparison with anything higher, as these straight- 
forward people readily see. In Choto Nagpur the conversion of 
aborigines has developed into perhaps the greatest mass movement 
toward the Church in modern mission history. Here, within the past 
forty-three years, upwards of two hundred thousand natives have 
been baptized. They have not only been baptized but they have 
been elevated educationally, socially and economically to a degree 
that is absolutely amazing. In almost every instance of mass move- 
ments the first contacts have been made through some humanitarian 
aid, such as procuring justice for the aborigines in the courts of the 
land, cooperative banking associations, etc. 

Just at present the aborigines in almost every mission field of 
India can easily be reached and can be converted in as great a number 
as we have missionary forces to throw into this glorious undertaking. 
As Father Gille, S.J., editor of the ‘‘Catholic Herald of India,” says 
this opportunity should be seized now while the seizing is possible, 


INDIA - 1925 45 
7 geeeeaeba cats seniletlleanlli: nla celia ales ARMS a ee I Be ra a AE 
for in the India of the future converted aborigines and outcastes will 
be a power through the elevating influence of Christianity. 


Catholic Missions to the Caste People of India 

The third kind of missionary work in India is VeECVEGittieculiamele 
is the work among the castes, those classes into which social and re- 
ligious barriers separate the Hindu people one from the Other, and 
yet, these are the best representatives of India’s ancient religious cul- 
ture. This work has just begun anew. - This seems strange, after three 
or four centuries of mission work in India. Yet the explanation is 
simple enough. There are so many calls for missionaries to attend to 
the Catholic population or to go to the aborigines and depressed 
classes that it is often physically impossible to take up the more 
difficult mission to the caste people. I remember one Section of the 
Bengal mission where there are fourteen villages in a very small 
compass. These villages have been calling on us for the last three 
or four years to come to them and to bring to them the light of our 
holy Faith. Obviously Catholic missionaries will go first to those who 
are calling for them before they take up work among people who 
resent their coming. 

Perhaps the only great inroads the Catholic Church has ever 
made into the higher castes of India are by the natural growth of 
the population of the Saint Thomas Christians on the Malabar coast 
and by the method adopted by De Nobili, in the seventeenth century, 
and by his modern protagonist Upadhayaya, who died in 1910. One 
was a foreign miSsionary, the other a brilliant Bengali publicist and 
conver... The Saint Thomas Christians today number more than 
four hundred thousand and the average annual number of converts 
of De Nobili was five thousand. Upadhayaya’s missionary work lay 
in the field of journalism, debate and asceticism. He held public 
disputes with the leading Hindu controversialists of his time, initiated 
the first and only Catholic theological review India ever had, and, not- 
withstanding restrictions both ecclesiastical and civil (for the novelty of 
his doctrines caused misgivings and he was a swarajist), he did 
much to show Catholic missionaries that India. would be led to the 
foot of the Cross not by an indiscriminate condemnation of Hinduism 
but by a patient study of Hindu philosophy and social culture, by re- 
moving, through the emphasis of the catholic character of the Cath- 
olic Church, the popular Indian conception that Christianity is west- 
ern, and by the missionary coming to India in the garb and practice 
of the ascetic, India’s religious ideal. The Brotherhood of Catholic 
Indian Sannyasi (ascetics) which he founded still lives on, in Spirit 
at least, in the person of Animananda, one of Upadhayaya’s first 
disciples, who conducts in Calcutta an Indian school on Catholic lines 
but for high caste Hindu boys, similar to Rabindranath Tagore’s fa- 
mous school at Bolpur. 

Substantially the same method of approach to Hinduism was lived 
cut in the life and is now written down in the autobiography of Father 
W. Wallace, S.J.. who came to India a Protestant minister and 


46 INDIA - 1925 


who was led to the Catholic priesthood in his search to find the kind 
of spirituality that alone satisfied his Indian converts. Although De 
Nobili, Upadhayaya and Father Wallace have all since passed away, 
their missionary method survives in Bengal in a new school of Cath- 
olic thought whose mouthpiece is ‘‘The Light of the East.” 

Belonging to the same movement and coming to his conclusions 
independently of, and without any contact with the Bengal group, is 
Father Pessin, whom I accidentally met in Washington a year ago 
and who amazed me with the theme of a book which he is publish- 
_ing now in India. The author will show in his new work that, through 
Max Mueller, Dawson and other occidental scholars, the western 
world has been given a false notion of Hindu philosophy, especially 
in exaggerating the fact of the universal prevalence of the pantheistic 
element and by refraining from bringing to light the monotheistic. 
Father Pessin’s conclusions touched, just the point ‘on which I found 
myself utterly incompetent to pass judgment, and which, nevertheless, 
is of crucial importance for determining the merits of this new school 
of Catholic thought, which uses, however, the method of a missionary 
of the seventeenth century, the only method that has successfully 
made any large inroads into the ranks of high caste people, and 
which, I suspect, is also the method of Our Lord and Saint Paul. One 
of the most eminent Catholic Scripture scholars of the world, Doctor 
Meinertz, of Muenster University, Germany, who has already made 
important contributions to Scripture-mission study, will investigate 
the merits and demerits of this Suspicion of mine. This is also the 
place to note that Catholic mission scholars of Europe, especially 
those at Muenster University, which has several chairs of Mission 
Science, have taken up the study of the problem of the proper ap- 
proach of Christianity to Hinduism, and they have already produced 
two important works, ‘Swami Upadhayaya” by Doctor Schmidlin, 
and ‘‘Robert De Nobili, S.J.,’’ by Dr. Peter Dahmen, S8.J. 

In spite of the laudatory manner in which I have described the 
so-called mission method of De Nobili, I must note here another 
method of approach to high caste Hindus. It rejects the idea of ac- 
commodation between any conceptions in Hindu philosophy and Cath- 
olic thought, which is the characteristic feature of De Nobili’s method, 
for the reason, according to Father Hull, S.J., the late editor of the 
“Bombay Examiner,’’ that there is complete antithesis between them. 
The second method, accordingly, discards the so-called stepping-stones 
to Christianity in Hindu philosophy, and teaches the Catholic doc- 
trine in the simple words of the catechism. Perhaps the most suc- 
cessful employment of this method is at St. Mary’s Tope, a compound 
in Trichinopoly, where Brahman converts are received and enabled 
to live according to the regulations of their caste. 

Medical Missions and Women Medical Missionaries 

There are six Catholic hospitals in India, six medical missionary 
doctors, four Catholic American missionary nurses and many nuns 
in charge of nursing departments in Government hospitals, while 


INDIA - 1925 47 


dispensaries range from well equipped and adequately staffed in- 
stitutions to the humble medicine chest of the missionary in his jungle 
hut. Asa matter of fact, practically every missionary, priest, brother, 
sister and lay catechist and teacher in India does medical work ac- 
cording to his or her ability and means. Of the six medical mission- 
ary doctors, three are foreign missionaries: Sister Mary of the Sacred 
Heart, of the Convent Hospital, Guntur; Doetor Anna Dengel, of St. 
Catherine’s Gosha Hospital, Rawal Pindi; and Doctor Catherine 
O’Connor, of St. Anne’s Gosha Hospital, Kumbakonam. The other 
three doctors are Indians, two Good Shepherd Sisters at St. Martha’s 
Hospital, Bangalore, and Doctor Fernandez, who is all that remains 
of Father Mueller’s Medical Brotherhood at Father Mueller’s hospital, 
Mangalore. 


In view of the widespread medical distress in India and of the 
disheartening inadequacy of the present medical personnel to relieve 
that distress, it must be clear that more medical relief of every de- 
seription is desirable. 


From India’s viewpoint, whether we approve of it or not, med- 
icine is bound up with religion, and medical practitioners will be 
looked upon as religious forces by the Indians. Hence, India offers 
the missionary a distinct advantage for the decisive moment of his 
relations with the people (namely, the introduction), if he comes to 
them as a medical missionary. With one portion of the population, 
the seventy-odd millions of Mohammedans, medicine is our only 
practical opportunity for even a hearing in behalf of Christianity. 

From the Catholic point of view, there is not only nothing against 
our missionaries going to pagans equipped as highly as possible with 
medical relief; there are strong, poSitive reasons for such action: 
(a) medical relief is a corporal work of mercy, and as such its prac- 
tice is recommended by God Himself; (b) the genius of Christianity, 
according to Our Lord’s own words, is charity (‘““By this shall all men 
know that you are My disciples, if you have love for one another’’); 
and since medical relief is a form of charity, it is at the same time 
one of the most gracious forms through which Christianity can be 
revealed to pagans; (c) so frequently did the Master Himself use the 
method of charitable medical relief in His missionary work, that 
there is scarcely a page of the Gospel which does not chronicle medical 
aid to the Jews of His day. 

The appalling infant mortality in India has an importance for the 
church, as Mr. Rebello, founder of the Catholic All-India Conference, 
pointed out. Through the medical apostolate many of our Catholic 
infants can be saved to swell the number of the Faithful. Through 
medical missions, also, thousands of infants and even adults are bap- 
tized in the hour of death and not infrequently these denizens of 
heaven secure the conversion of their families on earth to the Cath- 
clic Faith. 

In spite of all the Government can do to prevent petty bribery 
on the part of minor native officials and servants in civil hospitals 


48 : INDIA - 1925 


and dispensaries, the evil goes on, and free medical aid is, as a matter 
of fact, not free. In practice, a native is never sure of getting what he 
calls “good medicine’ unless he pays for it by a petty bribe. Asa re- 
sult, both from the point of view of finance and of confidence, 
facilities offered by medical missions are patronized much more fre- 
quently than Government institutions. 


This country presents another unique difficulty. Respectable 
women will, on no account, submit to examination by a medical man. 
In many districts, Mohammedan and high caste Hindu women ob- 
serve gosha or purdah (veiled from public view) and may not even 
be seen by a strange man. Missionary women: alone can enter be- 
hind this veil, and if they have the added service of medicine at their 
command they can make a favorable contact for the Church with 
India’s women folk who in many ways rule, from their barred en- 
closures, the practical religion of their households, 


The Marks of Sanctity on the Missionary 

One idea to which I have referred again and again in this short 
study of India is one that I first learned from the lips of the famous 
world-poet and oriental sage, Rabindranath Tagore; the idea was con- 
firmed by other Indian leaders and by innumerable writings. Leas 
that India’s religious ideal is the sannyasi, the ascetic. Perhaps the 
full import of the idea can be grasped best by describing my inter- 
view with Tagore. 

Among many questions, I asked why it is that many of the Indian 
leaders were opposed to Christian missionaries. Tagore smiled in- 
quiringly and then asked if I would be offended in the event his 
reason would not prove complimentary to the missionaries. I assured 
the poet that he could speak out his mind frankly. He then ex- 
plained how the achievements, the science and the ideals of the West, 
great as they were in themselves, do not appeal to the Indian, because 
the West too often overemphasizes the materialistic at the expense 
of the spiritual. Then he used a beautiful phrase, “‘India’s greatness 
is not in stone or marble or any external thing. It is internal—the 
flight of its poets, the teaching of its sages and the mortification of 
its ascetics. The ascetic is India’s religious ideal and him alone will 
she follow.’’ d 

In our own day perhaps the most convincing proof that Hindus- 
tan can be surely led by one who measures up to this ideal is given 
in the spontaneous way in which more than three hundred million 
human beings follow Gandhi whom India reveres and follows because 
she thinks he is a “Mahatma” (a saint). : 

It is also a most striking fact that those missionaries who have 
had the marks of sanctity upon them, men like Saint Francis Xavier 
and Robert de Nobili, have made the largest number of converts 
in India. The progress now being made shows that there are mod- 
ern uncanonized missionary saints. Sanctity is indeed India’s chal- 
lenge and opportunity to the Catholic missionary. 


INDIA - 1925 49 
rae Scan ATID Di ees 


Round Table Aids for Chapter Eight 
I. GENERAL INVESTIGATION AIDS 


Chapter Issue or Thesis: In India we ma 
activities as being well fitted to extend God’s 
tions prevailing in this land. 

Prove this by enumerating six facts. 


Il. SPECIAL INVESTIGATION QUESTIONS 

1. What is the problem of the native priests and their course of training 
in India? 

References: India and Its Missions, pp. 282-291. Catholic Educational Review 
(India, Burma, Ceylon), Christmas, 1925, pp. 65 ff. MANNA-McGLINCHEY, Con- 
version of the Pagan World. MIRANDA, A Native Indian Clergy (i Coat aS. 
pamphlet). 

Student sports in India. 

Reference: The Bengalese, January, 1924, pp. 16-17. 

3. How is a mission to the aborigines begun ? 

References: Catholic Encyclopedia on Choto Nagpur mission under term 
“Caleutta.”” The Bengalese, May, 1924, pp. 8 ff. 

4. What was Robert De Nobili’s mission method ? 

References: DAHMEN, Robert de Nobili, S.J. Catholic Encyclopedia. 
MIRANDA, Robert de Nobili’s Mission (I. C. T. S. pamphlet). 

5. What is the value of Catholic medical missions in India? 

Reference: KEELER, Catholic Medical Missions, pp. 105-164. 

6. Does the effect of nationalism on Christianity offer any timeliness to the 
methods of Upadhayaya’s school at the present time? 

References: SCHMIDLIN, Swami Upadhayaya. International Review of Mis- 
sions, July, 1923, pp. 321 ff. 


Ill. ACHIEVEMENT DISCUSSION SUGGESTION 


Write an essay or conduct a debate on the following subject: The mission 
method of De Nobili, that is, the principle of accommodation, should be followed 
by Catholic missionaries in approaching the high caste peoples of India today. 

References: SCHMIDLIN, Swami Upadhayaya. DAHMEN, Robert De Nobili, 
S.J. WALLACE, From Evangelical to Catholic by Way of the East. HULL, The 
Great Antithesis. Catholic Encyclopedia, article on Robert De Nobili. Van TYNE, 
India in Ferment. International Review on Missions, July, 1923, pp. 321 ff. 


y point out six principal mission 
Kingdom under the peculiar condi- 


CHAPTER NINE 


THE RENT IN THE GARMENT 


The history of Protestant missions in India has a special inter- 
est to the American public for the reason that our countrymen have 
played an important part in the movement. 


The Pioneers (1792-1813) 

Although Swedish and Danish Protestants took up missionary 
work in India as early as the Battle of Plassey (1758), no consistent 
missionary enterprise was successfully launched till the arrival in 
Calcutta of a young Scotch Baptist, William Carey, on November 
11, 1793. The hostility of the East India Company to all missionary 
efforts within its territory forced Carey to begin his work at Seram- 
pore, in Bengal, which was then under the jurisdiction of the Danes. 
This settlement was, however, made only six years after Carey’s ar- 
rival in India, when an American ship brought other English mis- 


50 INDIA - 1925 


sionaries, of whom Marshman and W. Ward became the most emi- 
nent. 


In fact, these two and Carey are known as the ‘‘Serampore 
TTL Ons 


Carey had been a .cobbler, Ward a printer, and Marshman a 


school-teacher. But all three were men of strong personality, 


true courage and heroic diligence. Carey became such a brilliant 
student of Sanskrit, Bengali and Marathi that he was appointed pro- 
fessor of these tongues at the newly founded English Government 
College in Calcutta with the handsome annual salary of almost six 
thousand dollars. With this salary the ‘‘SSerampore Trio” built a 
strong mission center in this Danish oasis of Bengal. Ward, following 
his own craft, set up a printing press to publish such oriental works 
of Carey as Sanskrit dictionaries and grammars, a Bengali newspaper 
and translations of the Bible, and even scientific books. The school- 
master Marshman established two important schools. In spite of the 
fact that these activities were only indirectly missionary in character, 
they supported the mission centers which were subsequently founded. 
In fact, it was the unique purpose of the “‘Serampore Trio” to support 
by the labor of their hands and brains their missionary movement. 
The Baptist Missionary Society, which had been founded by Carey in 
the home country before his departure for India, finally took over 


the property and the numerous missions of the “‘SSerampore Trio.” 
Carey died in 18384. 


Advent of the Great Missionary Socicties 
From the Charter to the Mutiny (1813-1857) 


Besides the ‘“‘SSerampore Trio,’”’ there were other Protestant mis- 
sionary pioneers, but these came out largely under the direction and 
authority of home missionary societies. Perhaps the most eminent 
of these pioneers was Ringeltaube, a German, who had, through the 
aid of a Sannyasi, made a splendid beginning among the Shannans of 
Tranquebar on the ‘Madras side. This was also Danish territory. 
Ringeltaube came first to Calcutta, under the auspices of the Society ° 
for the Promotion of Christian Knowledge, but the East India Com- 
pany made it impossible for him to do anything there. Accordingly, 
he joined the London Missionary Society and went 1o Tranquebar. 

The fight in. the home Parliament at London to force the East 
India Company to admit missionaries into its territories was waged 
for many years, and it was only at the renewal of the lease in 1813 
that the coveted right was wrung from the company. The permis- 
sion was limited, however, to English missionaries. It was not until 
almost fifty years later that missionaries of other lands were allowed 
to work in India. 

Besides the Baptist Missionary Society of William Carey’s crea- 
tion, there were others, the General Baptist Missionary Society, 
founded in 1816, which limited its labors to Orissa, and the London 
Missionary Society. The latter kept its mission in Tranvancore and 
opened up new ones in Bengal. Side by side with these two great 


INDIA - 1925 51 
ante he ec calles ak Sa RRR SMR ag ns er Oe eda, ES <a ht cM Ratna re 
societies there now appeared a third and new factor, the Church of 
England, together with societies which owed to her their birth and 
which derived from her their support. A bishop and three arch- 
deacons were for the time being deemed adequate ecclesiastical equip- 
ment for India, Ceylon and Africa. Of course the primary purpose of 
the Established Church was to serve English people in these parts and 
only secondarily did it engage in missions. Perhaps its chief contri- 
bution to missions in these days was the Missionary College, founded 
in Calcutta about 1818. The Society for the Promotion of Christian 
Knowledge gave up the mission field in 1825, turning over its stations 
and districts to the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel. With 
more men and resources, the Church Missionary Society stepped into 
the field in 1913. These were all more or less dominated by the 
Established Church. 


Many German missionaries entered the field at this time. They 
were educated principally at the Basle College, although there was 
another foreign missionary college at Berlin. The former school 
turned out more candidates than it could employ in its: own field, 
and most of these young men entered the service of English societies, 
and preferably that of the Church Missionary Society. The Wesleyans 
also made immediate use of the opening up of India through the 
new charter, although for nearly half a century they had labored 
in southern India and Ceylon. In 1813 they extended their work 
to the whole of south India. The American Baptist Mission in Burma 
was founded in a strange way, by the change of creed of the American 
missionary Judson, who became the founder of the American Baptist 
Mission in Burma in 1813. A college in Rangoon is today named 
after Judson. 


In the year 1822 the first representatives of the Scotch Mission- 
ary Society landed in western India. Their work in the west was 
very difficult and was not attended with much success. A great im- 
petus to the Scotch Missions came with the most striking missionary 
personality of this period, another Scot, Alexander Duff. This Seotch- 
man of the Free Church of Scotland arrived in Calcutta in 1830 at 
the age of twenty-one. Within a few weeks of his arrival he sized 
up the missionary situation as being in a frightful slump. He ac- 
cordingly struck out into new paths: to bring the non-Christian 
youth of India under Christian influence by means of schools. In 
direct opposition to public opinion, he resolved to make English 
and not the vernacular the language of his school for the elite of 
India. The attempt succeeded beyond all expectations. Even the 
educational policy of the Government was profoundly affected by 
and later modeled upon Duff’s ideas. Perhaps his greatest service to 
missions in relation to government was to inaugurate the grant-in- 
aid system by which many mission schools have since been assisted 
by Government grant of funds. Duff's schools had a great influence 
on the leading people of the land. 


52 INDIA - 1925 


From the Mutiny to the Indian Nationa] Congress (1857-1885) 


The fact that one of the causes of the India Mutiny was the in- 
troduction of a new, cartridge which offended the religious beliefs of 
Hindus and Mohammedans may be the reason for the murder of many 
missionaries during the revolt. Even to touch the grease on the car- 
tridge caused the Hindu soldier to lose caste and the Mohammedans 
to be declared unclean. Rather than touch these cartridges the India 
soldiers revolted and the Mutiny followed. The East India Company 
was abolished upon the conclusion of peace by the stroke of the pen, 
and Queen Elizabeth took over the government of the country. The 
silent objection to missionary effort, which was the policy of the East 
India Company, ceased with the dissolution of the Company and the 
establishment of the British Raj. This new spirit manifested itself 
chiefly in four great renewals of missionary effort, namely, by the 
Church Missionary Society, the Methodist Missions, the Presbyterian 
Missions and the Missions to Women. 


The Church Missionary Society worked in the Punjab. Before 
the Mutiny the Methodist Missionary Society had confined its efforts 
to Ceylon. After 1857 it took up work in and about Calcutta, Benares, 
Lucknow and other centers in the north. A third noteworthy feature 
of missionary work after the Mutiny is the advent of a large number 
of Presbyterian missionaries. Led by Americans, the Presbyterians 
laid down an important chain of missions from Allahabad in the 
southwest to Rawal Pindi in the north and later into the difficult 
stronghold of Hinduism, Rajputana. 


It was after the Mutiny also that women missionaries made 
their first appearance in India, at first timidly, but, after 1880, in 
great numbers and with great multiplicity of gifts and works. By 
zenana work, girls’ schools and women’s hospitals, they opened up 
new paths. 


This period is also characterized as the one in which special ef- 
forts were generally made by Protestant missionaries to Christianize 
the aborigines. The American Baptists, for example, opened up the 
mission to the Garos in 1841, a mission field in which, strange to say, 
American Holy Cross missionaries took up work in 1914. 


From the Indian National Congress to the World War (1885-1914) 


The development of the nationalist movement in India, from the 
establishment of the Indian National Congress to non-cooperation and 
its sequel, has been sketched in Chapter One and, with more detail, 
in Chapter Ten. The significance of the nationalist movement to 
Christian missions is also noted in the last chapter. These dates have 
been used here as terminj in Protestant mission work for the reason 
that they mark important limits of nationalism, which reacted on 
Protestant missions. The reaction, however, was noticed only during 
this period for the reason that the development of the nationalist 
movement was very slow and almost imperceptible. The World War 
hastened matters so rapidly that it marked an entirely new period. 


INDIA - 1925 53 
(Eee ee = ane aane de RES 2F ELE RE 2 SR SINS NE SaaS 

From the Indian National Congress to the World War mission 
work grew in leaps and bounds. In 1881 there were 38 Protestant 
mission societies at work in India; in 1891 there were 44; in LOO tee 
and in 1911 almost 100 distinct societies and a vast number of mis- 
sionaries unconnected with any particular organization. In addition 
to the foregoing missionary statistics, it must be noted that the num- 
ber of women missionaries had grown from 479 in 1881 to 1,174 in 
1900. An almost entirely new phase of mission work is presented by 
the appearance of 265 men and women medical missionaries. Also 
a new and wholly unique feature came with the Salvation Army 
and the High Ghurch Ritualistic Brotherhoods and _ Sisterhoods. 
These latter included the famous Cowley Fathers who later became 
Catholics. 

There is another aspect that distinguishes this period, the variety 
and complexity of Protestant mission work. Down to 1830, there 
was only one recognized method, proclamation of the Gospel by means 
of the preached or written word. Duff introduced a second branch, 
educational work. After the Mutiny, women missionaries made their 
appearance. Up to the World War three further branches came 
to be generally recognized: medical missions, industrial and agricul- 
tural missions, and home and boarding schools for famine orphans. 
Just as the previous period was characterized by an attempt to reach 
the aborigines in their forest fastnesses, so, to an even greater extent, 
a distinguishing feature of this period of Protestant mission work 
is a concerted effort to bring the Gospel to the lowest castes of the 
Hindus, the so-called Panchamas. 


Last Ten Years (1914-1924) 

Up to the World War the reaction of nationalism on missions did 
not go much farther than to question the value of Christianity as a 
product of that West which held, according to many leaders, India 
in bondage and which seemed so materialistic. The effect on the na- 
tive Christians was a growing assertion of the Indian in ecclesiastical 
government. The War, however, hastened all the processes by which 
nationalism was changing the Indian attitude toward things western, 
including Christianity, to such an extent that the missionary in India 
today faces an entirely new situation. 

This changed state of affairs will be treated in detail in Chapter 
Ten. Here I merely wish to refer to the most general manifestation 
of the changed situation, since it forms the background of the period. 
India Protestants became more and more impatient of the control— 
administrative and financial—exercised over them by the Home Mis- 
sionary Boards in England and the United States, so much so that 
if it were not for financial dependence on western Protestantism there 
probably would have been a wholesale severing of relations. Hence, 
the mark which characterizes almost every phase of mission activity 
during the last ten years is the growing predominance of the native 
element. 

Protestants claim that their communion numbers 2,350,991, of 


. 


54 INDIA - 1925 


which thirty-five per cent are communicant members. They assert 
that this represents an increase of thirty-three per cent during the 
last ten years, compared with thirty-seven per cent during the pre- 
ceding decade. Most of the conversions were made in mass move- 
ments among outcastes. This is so true that an eminent Protestant 
authority, Garfield H. Williams, in a survey of the missionary signif- 
icance of the last ten years in India, writes, “In the last ten years, 
the obviously outstanding feature of missionary progress has been 
in connection with the mass baptism of outcaste Indian villages.” 

_ The personnel of the Protestant foreign mission staff, including 
wives, is 5,330 (wives number 1,458). This number does not obvi- 
ously include native missionaries, for there are almost eight times 
as many native Indian missioners as foreign missionaries. 

The number of medical missionaries has not increased during 
this period. There are now only 98 foreign men doctors and 164 
women doctors and 650 nurses. From this it appears that 262 quali- 
fied doctors are in charge of 670 hospitals, asylums, sanataria and dis- 
pensaries. Even in this branch of mission work the native element 
is beginning to show strength, for there are 584 qualified Indian men 
doctors and 233 qualified women. Almost every medical institution 
is under-staffed. Among them are 64 leper asylums and eight tuber- 
culosis sanataria. 

More Protestant missionaries are engaged in educational work 
than in any other branch of foreign mission service. Of the total 
Protestant community one in every ten is under instruction. Yet 
this represents a decrease in the number of children instructed since 
the pre-war period. 

The War also helped to bring to the surface the obvious weak- 
ness of a divided Christianity and more especially the uninteresting 
character, as far as Orientals are concerned, of those western. theo- 
logical. squabbles from which sprang the various Protestant sects. 
The growing lack of confidence in things western and the Indian 
insistence upon autonomy in ecclesiasical affairs has already ad- 
vanced to the stage where it is clear that the Indian Protestant 
churches are going to control their own destinies in the future. The 
same Mr. Williams says, “It (the Indian church) will be glad of 
western financial help, but it will not tolerate western administrative 
control. It will be glad of western sympathy and cooperation, but 
it will not tolerate western domination.” 


Protestant Methods and Prospects 

Perhaps the greatest influence Protestant missionaries have 
wielded in India has been their press. There are upwards of thirty- 
five mission presses which print innumerable translations of the 
Bible into all the languages and dialects of the land, more than 120 
regular publications and a tremendous volume of books and pam- 
phlets. Through the press, Protestants have brought at least the 
story of Jesus to the reading public of Hindu and Mohammedan 
India. This has, of course, been a contribution. But they have 


INDIA - 1925 _ 55 
Bett sel al le lc aE Da IO ell Ne SC REGEN tar UT PEO SSS RR 
probably hurt Christianity and delayed the ultimate triumph of the 
Catholic Faith by failing to present just that feature of Christianity 
which Protestantism: has rejected, which India wants, and which the 
Catholic Church retains, asceticism, a celibate clergy, and the Holy 
Sacrifice of the Mass. Also some of this literature underestimates 
and even attacks the Catholic Church. 


Protestants have also reached the women population of India 
through the zenana and Bible women and medical women mission- 
aries in a very extensive and systematic way. Their industrial and 
agricultural missions have also done a great deal for the people from 
a human point of view, though by them they have overemphasized 
the humanitarian and material side of life. I say overemphasized 
for the reason that they have not given equal attention to the super- 
natural character of the Christian religion. 


The chief weaknesses of Protestantism have been the presenta- 
tion of a divided Christianity and their taboo of asceticism, the celi- 
bate priesthood, and the sacrifice of the mass. Of these, the latter 
is fundamental, for the reason that the ascetic is India’s religious 
ideal and him alone will she follow. A most Striking instance of the 
inability of Protestantism to satisfy India religiously is shown by 
the story of Father Wallace, S.J., who went out to India a Protestant 
missionary from the north of Ireland and who, through his search 
for something to satisfy the religious aspirations of this people, be- 
came a Catholic and a Jesuit missionary himself. The Protestant 
service of preaching, reading the Bible and singing hymns on Sun- 
day is too cold and man-made for the Oriental. He demands less 
human and more divine participation in divine service—he wants 
a sacrifice, a temple where God dwells and a religion that permeates 
every action of the day. 

The other weakness of Protestantism, a divided Christianity and 
consequent lack of authority, was brought to the surface in a rather 
menacing way by the World War. The same eminent Protestant au- 
thority quoted above has summed up the question in these words: 
“Indian Christians have more and more replaced the uncertain and 
discordant sounds issuing from the different western ecclesiastical 
bodies by the single voice of an Indian Christian community, and signs 
are not wanting that, though they will demand liberty to form vari- 
ous sects of their own if they choose to do so, they will refuse much 
longer to be branded like sheep by some western ecclesiastical owner 
and divided from their fellow-Christians by factors of which they 
know next to nothing and care less . . . Similarly, signs are not 
wanting that the missionaries on the field are heartily sick of the 
present disunited mission administration and there is not the slightest 
doubt that the they are eagerly seeking relief by national and provin- 
cial mission councils, which seem at last destined to come into their 
own. The fact is the mission body sees that it must discover a single 
voice somewhere or other— if it is to live and work in this new age 


in post-war India.”’ 


56 INDIA - 1925 


Round Table Aids for Chapter Nine 


I. GHNERAL INVESTIGATION AIDS 


Chapter Issue or Thesis: The history of Protestant missions in India, in spite 
of the indomitable energy and heroic idealism of many of its missionaries 
the inherent weakness of heretical sects. 

Prove this by enumerating six facts. 


Il. SPECIAL INVESTIGATION QUESTIONS 


1. What is the true value of Protestant statistics regarding the number of 
their converts? 

References: International Review of Missions, April, 1924, pp. 205 ff. Mis- 
sionary Review of World, September, 1923; May, 1924; December, 1924. Father 
rae os estimate of Protestant statistics in Catholic Herald of India, 

ml o2o. 


2. Are there any features of Protestant mission work in India which can be 
of service to Catholic missionaries? 

References: KEELER on ‘Protestant medical missions” in Catholic Medical 
pes Training India’s New Woman (in Missionary Review of World, Janu- 
ary, : 

3. What has been the greatest influence for Christianity in the Protestant 
missions in India? : 

References: Notes on Protestant press and medical missions in any history 
of missions in India. 

4. Do many Protestants, both missionaries and converts, become Catholics 
in India? 

References: WALLACE, From Evangelical to Catholic by Way of the East. 
Father Gille’s editorial in Catholic Herald of India, February, 25, 1925. The Ben- 
galese, May, 1924. 

5. How does Catholic education compare with Protestant education in India? 

References: Literacy and Education in India (in School and Society, Decem- 
ber 20, 1924). Catholic Educational Directory (India, Burma and Ceylon), pp. 65 
ff., Christmas, 1923. India and Its Missions, on ‘‘Education.”’ 

6. What is the attitude of Catholics as distinguished from that of Prot- 
estants on caste? 

Reference: RICHTER, Protestant Missions in India (The Bengalese, June, 1925). 


Ill. ACHIEVEMENT DISCUSSION SUGGESTION 


Write an essay or conduct a debate on the following subject: Catholic educa- 
tion ranks higher in India than Protestant. 

References: The Bengalese, June, 1924, p. 4. Catholic Educational Review 
(India, Burma and Ceylon), Christmas, 1923, pp. 65 ff. India and Its Missions, 
article on “‘Education.”’ 


, shows 


February 


CHAPTER TEN 
NATIONALISM AND THE FUTURE 


By seeing the West at its worst, in the throes of the World War, 
India has passed a sweeping judgment on everything western, includ- 
ing Christianity, which has created a new situation for the missionary 
to India. 


The Unchanging East? 

For many years men believed that they had stated the final truth 
about the Orient when they coined and applied to it the epithet of 
“the unchanging East.’ The epithet remains like many another obso- 
lete formula, but it no longer describes the facts, for the East is 
changing at last. Amid the cherry blossoms of Japan stand factories 


INDIA - 19255 D7 
ee ree Le ey in em EP Ge heh oe, OE! oR Meare 
as modern as any in the West. China, for centuries the Celestial 
Empire, is now a republic, or several republics, with frequent revolu- 
tions equal to the best in the Balkans or Central America. India also 
has a network of splendid railways, and in the larger cities there are 
motion picture houses and bazaars ablaze with light. But these are 
not the peculiar features of “the changing Hast” in India. Indeed, 
the change has turned from imitating what is called progress in 
western lands to a reaction against the same and a fostering of India’s 
ancient cultural ideas. This movement finds its most striking and 
most interesting feature in India’s political development. 

For thirty-five years a minority, educated along western lines, 
has been agitating for a larger share in the government of the land, 
and that demand has lately evolved into a campaign for complete 
independence of British rule. For several years past American news- 
papers have made us familiar with Mahatma K. Gandhi and the non- 
cooperation movement led by him. Letters from the missionaries on 
the field have given us further information, besides raising certain 
disquieting’ questions about the future of Christian missions in India. 


The Origins of the Nationalist Movement 

The year 1885 may be taken as the starting-point for the Indian 
nationalist movement. But the origins go back much farther in 
history. By 1885, a half century of English education had acquainted 
high-caste Hindus with western ideas of liberty, nationality, and self- 
government. Hindu and Moslem students were led to reflect upon the 
condition of their own motherland as they read the story of England’s 
struggle for political democracy in the inspiring works of Green, 
Milton, Murke, or Macaulay. They were impressed by the praises 
of ancient Hindu literature uttered by scholars like Max Mueller; pride 
in their own civilization revived and they began to sigh for the golden 
ages of the Vedas, when India was free and strong with the strength 
of youth. They saw only the glorious, and perhaps somewhat 
imaginary past/'apd the discriminations and injustices of the present. 
As Mr. Gandhi ‘has put it, the mass of Indians under British rule were 
a servile acquiescence in the status 


developing a “slave psychology’’: 
of inferiority assigned to them. 

From 1880 to 1884 India had a viceroy who understood that 
British dominion in India could not rest permanently on its existing 
basis. This was Lord Ripon, India’s first and only Catholic viceroy. 
He saw that the safety of British rule in India must depend upon the 
securing of voluntary cooperation from the Indian people. That 
meant that the people must be educated to take their proper part in 
the work of government. To prepare the way, Lord Ripon introduced 
a scheme of local self-government, modeled after the English! system 
of county councils and rural district boards. Road-building, sanita- 
tion, education, famine relief and similar matters were thus brought 
within the control of native officials elected by the people. Many 
British officials and residents in India did not share the viceroy’s 


58 INDIA - 1925 


liberal views, and when, in 1888, a bill was introduced into council to 
remove the exemption which Europeans enjoyed from native courts, 
there was violent protestation from the entire European community 
in the peninsula. The bill failed and the Indians took its failure as a 
sign that the British residents generally meant to hold them perma- 
nently in a position of inferiority. The next year Lord Ripon resigned. 
His journey from the summer capital at Simla to the port of Bombay 
was one triumphal procession.’ Everywhere he was garlanded with 
flowers and made to listen to addresses expressing the admiration 
and gratitude of the Indian people. 


The Indian National Congress and the Rise of the 
Revolutionary Party 

The Indians, on their part, decided to call a congress of the 
leaders interested in the politics of the land. The prospectus of the 
meeting stated that “indirectly this congress will form the germ of a 
native parliament, and if properly conducted will constitute in a few 
years an unanswerable reply to the assertion that India is still wholly 
unfit for any form of representative institution.’’ The first session of 
the Indian National Congress, in answer to this call, met in Bombay, 
December 28-380, 1885, attended by seventy-two delegates—lawyers, 
teachers, and editors. Resolutions were passed, after much speech- 
making and discussion, demanding a larger native representation in 
the legislative council and in the civil service. The next session was 
held at Calcutta, in 1886, with an attendance of 440 delegates, and no 
end of enthusiasm. Since then, meetings have been held yearly during 
December at one or another of the great Indian centers, and local 
branches of the congress have been formed throughout the country. 

The members of the congress did not in the beginning advocate 
independence from Great Britain, stating rather that they desired 
“the consolidation of union between England and India by securing 
the modification of such conditions as may be unjust or injurious to 
the latter country.” By 1907, however, a faction in the congress 
raised such disorder that the session of that year was broken up. 
The split that resulted was not healed until 1916, when a reunited 
congress met at Lucknow. The reunion was only temporary. The 
control of the congress machinery finally passed from the moderates 
to those who demanded political independence under the leadership 
of Mr. Gandhi. 

What events have brought about the change in character of the 
nationalist congress and the rise to power of the revolutionary wing? 
The new conditions begin to be noticed in India shortly after 1900. 
“Peculiar economic conditions were producing an increasing number 
of youths for whom life seemed hard and difficult in spite of Eng- 
lish education. There was a desire for change, an impatience of the 
present, a growing doctrine that the old times were better than the 
new.” Lord Curzon’s partition of Bengal into two provinces in 1905 
raised a storm of discontent among the congress leaders at Caleutta 


eal ; 


INDIA - 1925 59 
Oca alas Ae ae a el ee NE TEE ERAS Pla oP OS lig ye aa ee RS 
who proclaimed that Lord Curzon was attempting to efface Bengali 
nationality. In 1912 Bengal was reunited, but Delhi was selected in 
place of Calcutta as the viceroy’s seat in India. 

It should be noted that the victory of Japan over Russia pro- 
foundly stirred India as well as the rest of the Orient, and was a 
source of immense encouragement to the Indian patriots against 
British rule. The students in the colleges were particularly stirred. 
“A new dignity and self-respect,’ says a missionary teacher, ‘fa new 
enterprise and hope inspired them. Up to that moment they had been 
listless, slugglish. But now all was changed. They were eager and 
alert. Any lecture on ‘character’ would draw a crowded audience. 
They wanted only to know how they could lift their country higher.” 
From dreams of patriotic endeavor and lectures. on character, the 
youthful students of Bengal passed to the study of firearms and bombs. 
Patriotic newspapers published in Bengali and Hindu fanned their 
hatred of the ruling class and their ardent longing for swaraj (inde- 
pendence). Bomb-throwers arrested and executed by the Government 
were given impressive cremation ceremonies and their names venerated 
as those of martyrs. In 1912 Lord Hardinge, the new viceroy, was 
seriously wounded while making his state entry into Delhi. Mr. G. K. 
Gokhale, a leader of the moderate nationalists, used his influence to 
restrain student political violence, but without much effect. 


The World War 

Aside from the patriotic student population of Bengal, the country 
was quiet when the outbreak of the World War brought a new condi- 
tion of affairs.’ The Morley-Minto Reforms of 1908 had greatly 
enlarged the legislative councils and had convinced most of the nation- 
alists that they were well on their way to achieve parliamentary gOov- 
ernment for India along colonial lines. But the World War changed 
all this. For the India leaders, who had been educated along western 
lines, the war had disillusioned them completely as to the value of 
western civilization. Leadership was needed by Great Britain to bring 
the illiterate masses to the support of the war. This the western- 
educated Indians supplied in a very efficient way. This also gave 
them an occasion to think out some of the worst implications of the 
War and the more they thought the less they admired western civiliza- 
tion, which had allowed itself to come to such a pass. “At the end 
of it, for them, the Westerner had hardly a shred of reputation left. 
His civilization seemed to them to have been proven a failure, his 
power a delusion, the inevitability of his dominance a pricked bubble.”’ 
In this way, the War speeded up by giant strides the movement back 
to the simple agricultural life of ancient Hindu ideals and away from 
the materialistic and highly developed industrialism of the West. 

Through the War alone and the army of one million soldiers who 
were taken out of their villages and shown the great world, the devel- 
opment of the Indian masses in their repugnance to the West was 
also speeded up in an unprecedented way. Sick of a war that was 


60 INDIA - 1925 


waged in the West with shrapnel and big guns, India’s returning 
soldiery prepared a fertile field for Gandhi, the apostle of the East, 
and of a warfare which was to be fought by moral weapons—non- 
cooperation. 

The defeat of the Turk meant to the loyal followers of the Prophet 
in India the defeat of Islam. It united the seventy million Indian 
Mohammedans against the British Raj. Thus, for the first time in 
its history, ‘‘India was united against the British as the representative 
of western civilization which they partly fear and partly hold con- 
temptible, but which unwittingly they none the less desire to emulate.” 

Late in 1917 there arrived in India’ a party headed by Mr. 
Montagu, the Secretary of State for India, who was almost as great 
an India enthusiast as Gandhi. He had come to confer on the spot 
with the heads of the government and to determine whether further 
electoral reforms were needed. <A joint scheme of reform was drawn 
up by Mr. Montagu and the Viceroy, Lord Ghelmsford, and enacted 
into law in 1919. Indian representation in the civil service was greatly 
increased, and a system of bicameral] legislatures was set up for the 
provinces, one house of which is practically a popular body. Certain 
subjects of legislation are ‘‘reserved,’ and may not be discussed by 
the popular chamber, but are to be transferred to their jurisdiction 
as fast as their poltical experience prepares them to deal with more 
important subjects. The reform did not satisfy the nationalists, and 
they abstained from taking any part in the elections under the new 
ACTIN Loew, 


Mahatma Gandhi and Non-Cooperation 

The sterner attitude of the nationalists was in part determined by 
the harsh manner in which the Government put down the revolu- 
tionary disorders in the Punjab in 1919, where, at Amritzar, 400 sus- 
pected rioters were shot down in cold blood. Mr. Gokhale, the former 
leader of the nationalists, died in 1915, and the party had come under 
the leadership of the celebrated Gandhi, a Hindu lawyer and advocate 
of social reform, who had devoted many years in attempting to better 
the lot of Indian immigrants in South Africa and had returned to 
India with the reputation of a saint (Mahatma) and a champion of the 
depressed classes. He conceived a unique method of forcing inde- 
pendence from the British Government, namely, an oriental method, 
by passive resistance or non-cooperation. Indians were to make their 
own cloth, retire from the British courts, take no part in the legislative 
council, withdraw from Government schools, and in short, cut them- 
selves aloof from the entire British Raj. Refusal to pay taxes was held 
back as a last resort. Gandhi’s personality was so winning, his repu- 
tation as a saint so overwhelming, his eloquence so great, that in a 
short time he had huge multitudes at his back, and in 1920 the 
National Congress formally adopted his program. Gandhi had such 
faith in his scheme that he promised swaraj by August 1—a date 
which he had to postpone from month to month as time went on. 


INDIA - 1925 61 
The success of the non-cooperation movement was nevertheless at 
first startling. Gandhi has consistently preached a _ non-violent 
resistance to the Government, but his more youthful and more radical 
followers could not be restrained. The arrival of the Prince of Wales 
in India was the occasion for rioting in Bombay—an outbreak of 
violence which lasted for four days and which brought about fifty- 
eight deaths and four hundred lesser casualties. Mr. Gandhi did 
public penance. The Government took measures to overawe his 
followers. Within a month thousands of non-cooperators were 
arrested in Bengal, Bombay, and the Punjab. Most of them were 
given short-term sentences, but the lieutenants of Gandhi, and finally 
Gandhi himself, were sentenced for long periods. With Gandhi's 
arrest, non-cooperation gradually disappeared. It is now a year since 
Gandhi’s release from prison, and he has practically confessed the fail- 
ure of non-cooperation to achieve swaraj. But Gandhi is not yet fin- 
ished. Perhaps he is greater in his defeat and more powerful among 
the people than ever before. His latest social reform in behalf of 
India’s untouchables has just been announced in dispatches from the 
Malabar coast. It is one of the most daring and significant social 
reforms ever attempted in India. The situation is such that at any 
time Gandhi may rise to attempt swaraj in yet other ways. 


Vationalism and the Missions 


The nationalist movement has affected Christian missions in 
India mainly in two ways: it has made the native Christian com- 
munity more or less restless under its European clergy; it has tended 
to emphasize the western character of the Christianity known to India, 
and has thus made the profession of Christian Faith an act smacking 
of disloyalty to India’s historic civilization and her present aspirations. 

To a certain extent, Catholic missions have also been made to 
feel this effect of the nationalist movement. Yet, Catholic missions 
have been providentially prepared for the changed situation by the 
creation of the Indian hierarchy as early as 1885, by Pope Leo XIII’s 
keen interest in and absolute insistence upon the training of a native 
clergy, for which he himself instituted two papal seminaries, Kandy 
and Puthenpally; by the wise warnings of eminent Catholic converts 
like Upadhayaya to represent Christianity as the Catholic religion shorn 
of its European and American trappings; by the recent creation of 
two dioceses for Indian bishops, and by the erection of a distinct 
hierarchy for the native Christians of the Syriac Rite. 

Perhaps the only temporary embarrassment which nationalism 
brought to some Catholic misisonaries was the practical necessity of 
changing many of their schools from the European to the Indian 
code. This was in fact a change which will truly aid the Catholic 
missionaries and prove in yet another way the truly catholic spirit 
of the Catholic Church. : 

The effect of the new nationalistic spirit is more pronounced 
upon the Protestant wing of Indian Christianity than upon the 


62 INDIA - 19215 


Catholic community, as is natural among Christians who have largely 
given up the principle of authority in religious matters. Indian 
Protestants are impatient of the control, administrative and financial, 
exercised over them by missionary boards in Great Britain or the 
United States. An informal conference of Indian Protestants. at 
Allahabad in April, 1919, resolved that “As soon as the national consci- 
ousness in a Christian church or community has reached the stage 
when its natural leaders feel themselves hampered and thwarted in 
their witness or service by the presence of the foreign missionary and 
of the system for which he stands, that church or community has 
reached the limit of healthy development under existing conditions. 
We believe that in some parts of India the church has reached this 
stage.”’ This is an extremely polite way of saying that Indian 
Protestants will no longer tolerate the ecclesiastical control of western 
foreign missionaries. 

The nationalist movement has also had one good effect in behalf 
of Christianity which is of epochal consequence. The leader of the 
movement, Mahatma Gandhi, has tried to apply the Master’s teaching 
to politics and to sociology as the best means of raising the people of 
India to a consciousness of their duty to themselves and to humanity. 
Thus “Mahatma Gandhi’s movement has made the central teaching of 
Christ known and cherished in quarters to which a hundred years of 
propaganda of Christian missions had not been able to penetrate. And 
it has presented it in a form readily assimilable to the indian mind, + 


Round Table Aids for Chapter Ten 
I GHNERAL INVESTIGATION AIDS 


Chapter Issue or Thesis: By seeing the West at its worst, in the throes of 
the World War, India has passed her judgment on western civilization itself, a 
generalization which is too sweeping to be true. 

Prove this by enumerating six facts. 


II. SPECIAL INVESTIGATION QUESTIONS 


1. To what extent has Gandhi been dependent upon the doctrine of Christ 
in his politico-social movement? 

Reference: International Review of Missions, April, 1924, pp. 190 ff. 

2. In what sense has Gandhi been a Christian missionary ? 

References: The Bengalese, August, 1922, p. 4. International Review of 
Missions, April, 1924, p. 204. 

3. Has nationalism affected the position of Christianity in India? 

References: International Review of Missions, July, 1923, pp. 8321 ff.; and 
same period, April, 1924, p. 204. 

4. How has nationalism affeeted Catholic missions? 

Reference: The Bengalese, August, 1922, pp. 5 ff. 

5. How has nationalism affected Protestant missions ? 

Reference: International Review of Missions, July, 1923, pp. 321 ff. 

6. Is the antagonism of post-war India toward everything western justified? 

Reference: Discussion of Tagore vs. Gandhi on this subject in Van TYNE, 
India in Ferment. 


Ill. ACHIEVEMENT DISCUSSION SUGGESTION 


Model a bust or paint portraits of Gandhi or write an appreciation of Gandhi's 
character and work, or conduct a debate on the subject: Gandhi is (or is not) right 
in his condemnation of western civilization. 


em, i 
A Ae 


INDIA - 1925 _ 63 


General Bibliography 


BOOKS 


BRUCE, Brig. Gen., The Assault on Mt. Everest (New York, Longmans, 1922). 

CAPUCHIN MISSION UNIT, India and, Its Missions (New York, Macmillan), 

CASTETS, J., S.J., The Madura Mission. 

mieerriteey STUDENTS’ MISSION CRUSADE, To Defend the Cross (Cincinnati, 
1923). 

CATTELL, Milly, Behind the Purdah. 

DAHEM, Dr., S.J., Robert De Nobili, S.J. (Muenster, 1924). 

DAY, Rev. Lal Behari, Bengal Peasant Life. 

DILL, Roman Society in the Last Days of the Western Empire. 

DuBOIS and BEAUCHAMP, Hindu Manners, Customs and Ceremonies. 

EHA, Behind the Bungalow (London, W. Thacker & Co., 2 Creed Lane, E. C.). 

GILLE, A., S.J., The Catholic Family; A) Christian Social Crusade; Christianity at 
Home in India; A Dictionary for Secial Students ; To Xavier’s Tomb (Calcutta, 
Orphan Press). 

HIGGENBOTTOM, Sam, The Gospel and the Plow (New York, Macmillan, 1921). 

HULL, Father, S.J., The Great Antithesis. 

JAYNE, K. G., Vasco da Gama and His Successors. 

KEELER, Floyd, Catholic Medical Missions (Cincinnati, C. S. M. C.). 

KELLY, M. T., Life of Saint Francis Xavier (St. Louis, Herder, 1918). 

LOTI, Pierre, India. 

MARTINDALE, Father, S.J., In God’s Army (London, 1915). 

MATHIS, Rev. M. A., C.S.C., With the Holy Cross in Bengal (Washington, D. C., 
1924). 

MEDLEYCOTT, Bishop, India and the Apostle Saint Thomas. 

SCHMIDLIN, Rev. Dr. Joseph, Swami Upadhayaya. 

SETH-SMITH, E. K., The Firebrand of the Indies (London, 1924). 

TAGORE, Rabindranath, My Reminiscences (New York, Macmillan, 1917). 

THOMPSON, E. J., Rabindranath Tagore (London, Oxford University Press, 1921). 

Van TYNE, Claude H., India in Ferment. 

Van der SCHUEREN, T., S.J., The Belgian Mission of Bengal (Calcutta, Thacker, 
Spink & Co., .1922). 

WALLACE, W., S.J., From Evangelical to Catholic by Way of. the Hast, 

Catholic Educational Directory, Christmas, 1923. 

Catholic Encylopedia. 

Census of India, Vol. I, Chap. XII. 

Indian Year Book. 


MAGAZINES 


Asia, March, April, 1923; April, June, October, 1924. 

Atlantic Monthly, August, 1924. 

Bandura Tin Horn. 

Bengalese, January, April, 1921; February, April, June, August, September, 1922; 
January, March, April, July, September, December, 1923; January, March, 
April, May, July, November, December, 1924; February, March, June, 1925. 

Catholic Herald of India, February 25, 1925. 

Catholic Hospital Progress, February, Mareh, 1924. 

Catholic Missions, October, 1920; February, May, 1922. 

Century, November, 1924. 

Edinburgh Review, July, 1924. 

International Review of Missions, July, 1923; April, 1924. 

Literary Digest, January 14, 1922. 

Living Age, March 8, 1924; August 30, 1924. 

Missionary Review of the World, September, 1923; May, December, 1924; January, 
1925. 

Month, August, 1912; December, 1922. 

Nation, December 21, 1921; Mareh 5, April 23, April 30, 1924. 

National Geographic Magazine, June, 1913; November, 1921. 

Outlook, February 13, 1924. 

Patna Mission Letter. 

Review of Reviews, May, 1922. 

School and Society, December 20, 1924. 

Seience, February 22, 1924. 

Travel, March, 1924. 


